


Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

by runaway_killjoy



Category: Mallory Knox - Fandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runaway_killjoy/pseuds/runaway_killjoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artists often struggle financially but one patronage casts Gerard into a new league. Here he meets Frank and both lives are turned upside down forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

You begin to get to know the regulars. They show signs you know. They never flirt with me if they come here often. They never flirt with my boss anyway. I’m not saying that I’m just a better looking guy but you’d never even attempt to flirt with Bob.

      There are many great attributes to Bob. My favourite is the fact that he is straight but owns a fucking gay bar in the middle of New Jersey.

      Bob sidles up to me and says, “I’ll close up here now if you could tell people to get the fuck out kindly you can go home.”

      I nod and walk up to two guys eating each other’s faces off, “hi. Would you kindly get the fuck out?” They pull apart and look up at me. “Uh... please?”

      “Do you work here?” one says. They’re British but as far as I can tell they’re regulars.

      “No he doesn’t, Phil!” the other one exclaims, his accent slurred. “He’s a fucking artist!”

      “Um,” I look up but Bob is putting the vodka away, he won’t be helping me. “I am an artist… But I also work here.”

      “Huh,” one of them, Phil I think, says.

      “Right… My job aside you have to leave now. It’s closing time.” There are still a load if people I need to ask to leave.

      “I heard this place becomes a Mormon Church group by day,” one says as they begin stumbling together out the door. Where the fuck did he hear that…

      I shoo another large group of people toward the door and then another. Gradually the place emptied itself, no one wanting to be the last in the bar.

      “Do you need me tomorrow?” I ask before leaving myself.

      Bob nods, “yea if that’s okay. Saturdays are always busy.”

      “See you then, Bob,” I wave on my way out the door. I think he grunts in return but he could have been silent.

      I jog out into the cold of the night. February leaves the steps up to the apartments’ door fucking dangerous. I am the fortunate enough person to live directly above the gay bar. I stopped attempting to get girls about a year ago now. Bringing a girl home while drunk guys hit on me as I fumble with keys is not really easy. Also the whole me flirting back before trying to fuck her thing is understandably a turn off.

     The hall is cold as I jog up the narrow stairs to the first door.

     It’s three am but I’m too awake to sleep. I need to work on this painting anyway.

     I pull the easel out from it’s discarded position by the couch. I was painting this graveyard I dreamt about a few times but the longer I leave painting it the more the memory will slip away. I dreamt about a vivid violet sky punctured by black blanches and graves. A dark mausoleum is the centre piece of the scene but I think I’m going to leave that out. In my dream that was what I was approaching and it was marked _Gerard Way._ Seeing your own grave is never a great sign.

      I mix a vibrant blue with the violet to make the clouds and after about ten minutes I’d settled into the stride of painting again.

 

My alarm wakes me at ten. I know it doesn’t seem early but I had only fallen asleep at half five. Fuck it. I search under the gathered papers for the source of the sound. Dodgy alarm clock only goes off every now and again. When I find it I walk over to the window above my desk and fling it out. I smashes on the pavement but the noise doesn’t stop.

     “Fucking piece of shit,” I slide the window down to numb the sound.

     Coffee. _Last night I dreamt about whales_ I think as I stir the black liquid. The bubbles take the form of a whale when I take the spoon out. I shake my head as I carry it to my work table beside the only decent window in the house. _Of course you’re not seeing whales, you crazy fuck._

      Whether I was seeing whales in my coffee or not, I was certainly seeing them on paper as I begin sketching. I finished the sketch before the coffee and it’s terrifying. No more drawing my dreams fucking hell. The whale is eating me as I dreamt but the fact that I only used a red and black pen makes it gory. Maybe I should go work in a horror animation studio…

     I roll it up and light the page on fire. I then light a cigarette with the burning whale drawing before tossing it out into the February rain.

     At about one o clock just as I’m finishing the painting, my phone rings.

     “I’m coming over tonight.”

     “Hi Mikey, I’m good how are you?” I say sarcastically.

     “Fuck off I’ll be there in an hour.”

     “Uh, why?”

     “I’ll tell you then,” and he hangs up. Right. I try to pick sketches off the couch and floor to give him space to move in my flat. I sweep fag buts out of the kitchen and hide my weirdest drawings. By the time the doorbell rings I look like a mildly sane artist with a cocaine addiction. Really I’m just an insane artist who spilled talcum powder all over his flat when he was drunk because art.

     “Hey Gee,” he says walking through the front door and straight into the kitchen area to make coffee.

     “Hi. So, what’s up?”

     “Guess what I achieved today,” he says filling the pot.

     “You discovered your sexuality?”

     “No.”

     “You won a marathon.”

     He snorts a laugh, “I cannot run a block, no.”

     “You electrocuted your ex.”

      “Yes but that’s beside the point,” he hands me a mug of coffee.

      “You electrocuted your ex?!” I say, kinda alarmed now.

      “Only a little. Anyway. I may have found you a patron.”

      “A patron?”

      “You know, a rich person who will buy your art.”

      “I know what a fucking patron is.”

      “Then why did you fucking make it a question.”

      “It was a more of a “who” not “what”. So, who?”

      “Mrs Iero. I was installing a fucking chandelier in this massive fucking mansion apartment up the top of this building. So she’s definitely rich. She had art in the other rooms, proper expensive looking ugly pieces. And then in the chandelier room there was a long blank wall so I told her it could do with some art. She said, “Yes I am aware”” he puts on a posh accent before sipping his coffee. “So then I said that my brother happened to be an undiscovered talented artist who would be worth millions in the future.”

      I laugh into my cup at this. “I can barely afford rent as an artist. And I get most of my money from the bar!”

      “Yea so now is your chance to be discovered by some lawyer woman.” He sips his coffee. “I showed her the pictures I had on my phone and she seemed interested enough to ask if you could come over and talk to her about art and stuff tomorrow.”

      “Oh.”

      “Yea.”

      We drink our coffee then before speaking again, “So want me to drop you over there tomorrow at like twelve, after they’ve been to mass. They seem to be Catholics so just don’t be a fucking asshole.”

       “Better not bring those as samples then,” I laugh gesturing to the painting of a stripper enticing a devil and the one I did of the graveyard.

       “Yea maybe not,” he laughs back.


	2. Two

The second I got out of the elevator on the fifty fifth floor I knew it was an inappropriate time to wear my Iron Maiden tshirt. It was the only one not covered in paint and only smelt vaguely like it was washed In a coffee pot.

      Mikey knocked on the door for me as my arms were filled with sample sketches and bits of art that don’t look like they’d summon the antichrist.

      “Hello,” the young lady smiled after opening the door. She was about ten years younger than I’d expected and about four years younger than me. I had been expecting some thirty five year old nun like figure on some early twenties girl who should not have a master’s degree or husband yet.

      “Hey, my name is Gerard, nice to meet you,” I say as calmly as I can.

      “Katelyn Iero, would you like to come in?” I nod and begin my awkward shuffle into the pale hall randomly dotted with bits of fancy ass art and gold borders.

      Mrs Iero leads us through into a grand sitting room. The chandelier Mikey put in over powers the room making everything feel cramped and weird. Like this is a fucking apartment in New Jersey not Buckingham palace. If I was designing this room I’d leave it out. Against the window where you see low hanging February clouds and piercing skylines it looks fucking stupid.

      “Admiring your brother’s handiwork?” Mrs Iero says, calling back to attention.

      “Yea how… grand.”

      “I think it really gives a classical glow to the urban jungle,” she says standing beside me. She smells like an expensive perfume.

      “Yea the contrast is quite strong…” _I don’t like it._

“Anyway. This is the wall in need of art,” Mrs Iero turns us to the back wall. Completely empty and cream in colour, like everything in the room. The skirting at the bottom is gold, trimming the walls. Everything here is trimmed in gold, the couches, the coffee table… What is even the point in trimming shit?

      “Well the cream of the wall and the gold of the trim-skirting board leaves you with a very limited pallet for the painting. For example it rules out the use of oranges and yellows which would completely clash with the gold,” I explain this with various hand gestures awkwardly made around the bundle of art.

      “What a pity,” Mrs Iero sighs, “I was hoping to commission a sunset scene.”

      “Well not all sunsets are yellow. In fact a red one would complement the uh gold and make the room seem warmer,” I rub my chin trying to the figure out if pinks would throw the whole room off balance. “Would you like to see some things I’ve done?”

      “Indeed.”

     I lay out my papers on the fancy coffee table. Mikey who had been hovering at the edge of the room is now drifting along the windows which stretch the length of the wall.

      “Oh this is beautiful,” Mrs Iero says picking up a painting I only half-finished of the view from a hospital window. “You can really paint landscapes.”  
      “Oh thanks!” I try not to look to proud.

      “Wait right here,” she says before turning on her heel and dashing off through a closed door. Mikey swings around and winks at me. He returns to staring at the rich side of the city before Mrs Iero returns with some photographs.

      “This is Monroeville. I grew up here,” her voice goes slightly southern with Nostalgia. “Mr Way, do you think you could paint something like these pictures for me?”  
      I breathe in sharply, “Yea, yea sure. You can call me Gerard by the way.”

      “Okay Gerard. For the two I’d like them to be about this size,” she walks over to the wall and marks out portrait rectangles, “one of the dawn and one of the sunset. I’m prepared to pay you twenty five thousand dollars for each, assuming they come framed.”

      I hear Mikey choke a bit behind me and I feel like choking myself. Fifty grand. Fifty thousand dollars. I can probably fix my oven with that. And buy a load of new pencils. And pay some bills. “Yea. Sure. That would be perfectly okeydokey Mrs Iero.”

       “Okay…” fuck, no one says okeydokey this side of the century, “You may call me Katelyn then. If you want to take measurements or anything…?” By the “may” I think I better keep calling her Mrs Iero.

       “Uh shit I didn’t bring my measuring tape or anything,” I cast a glance at Mikey. I never thought I’d get the job so I never thought I’d need to measure anything.

       “Well that is okay, you can come back tomorrow any time after four; either my husband or I will be here. Now, let me get you an envelope for these photographs.

 

“Fucking hell bro!” Mikey says as soon as we sit into his car. “Fucking fuck! I’ll drive you over tomorrow. Fuck it, I’ll drive you everywhere for this job as long as you buy me a drink that doesn’t taste like piss.”

      “You want some kind of cocktail?” I scoff as we pull into an awkward junction.

      “Yep. If my brother is earning big cash like that I want to only drink the fanciest of alcohol and fuck women with gold trimming.”

      “You noticed the trimming too?”

      “Who wouldn’t? It was a fucking weird amount. Also I may need you to spend all that money on bailing me out of prison.” He stamps hard on the breaks as the car in front stops. “Bastard.”

      “Wait, what? Why would I need to pay for your bail?”

      “Because I drive you everywhere and you’re about to have more money than me.”

      “No, why will you be in jail?”

      “Oh yea,” he laughs a bit. “Uh, you know the way I said I electrocuted my ex, well that wasn’t a joke…”

      “Mikey!”

      “I told her when we were together to not use the hair straightener so much, it may blow the fuse. Now that isn’t actually true but I wanted her to stop running up the bill when we were together.” He presses down hard on the accelerator as we start moving again. “So her new boyfriend called my company and I was sent out Saw her hair straightener while I was working the fuses and may have altered the resistor to a much lower one while I was in the room.”

     “What does that mean?”

     “That means that when she turns on the straightener the fuse will blow and probably mildly shock her.”

     “You evil bastard!” I can’t help but laughing.

     “Thanks.”

 

I knock on the door alone after leaving Mikey sitting in his ’05 ford focus surrounded by brand new BMWs and Mercedes’. The door opens and Mrs Iero is standing in a fancy navy suit. “Hi Gerard come in and measure yes?”

      “Yea, if that’s okay,” I say as she turns to walk back into the main room. I close the door behind myself.

      “All I’m saying is they aren’t _bangs_ and are perfectly acceptable in the working world!” a guy calls out from somewhere in the main room. I hear a silencing whisper probably from Mrs. Iero.

      I walk into the gold trimmed room to find a guy in a shirt and slacks standing near the window. He does indeed have bangs, but he also has a good few tattoos so I don’t see how his hair could really matter all that much.

      “Frank, this is the artist, Gerard Way. Gerard this is my husband, Frank,” Katelyn says as she desperately smoothens a wrinkle on a throw over the couch.

       “Hi,” I say. When Katelyn stands up I see she is several inches taller than her husband. I must say they make an odd looking couple, the husband being far better looking. I shouldn’t think like that in such a catholic apartment I might go on fire. I shouldn’t think like that either. Fuck it I was never a good person.

      “Hey,” Frank says, smiling.

      I nod awkwardly before walking toward the wall. I fumble a bit with the measuring tape and in the back of my vision I see both Iero’s leave the room. I could theoretically take the gold trimmed crucifix and run but that would be a really stupid idea.

     Katelyn returns after a while smoothing down her skirt and saying, “Everything, er, okeydokey?”

     I wince. “Yup. Um, I can probably get a good canvas this wide,” I gesture outward, and anything more would be difficult to get in Jersey.”

     “Yes that will be perfect, thank you Gerard.” That would be my queue to get the fuck out I guess.

     “Okay, I’ll keep you up to date then?” I say starting for the door.

     “That would be excellent, thank you. Bye now.”

     “Bye.” As I open the door I realise there’s another gold trimmed crucifix I could easily take and run. Again I think that’s frowned upon by literally everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :) sorry for changing the name like that just this one fits better i think. Well maybe i don't know. Thanks for reading and i promise there'll be more Frank next chapter as well as Mikey Chapman from Mallory knox. I thought there'd be too many Mikey's but you can never really have too many...  
> Right so let me know what you think and i'll update promptly :*


	3. Three

The canvases take up most of my main room. I have to walk in large squares to get from my easel to the kitchen. I end up cutting down on my daily intake of coffee just because I’m too lazy to walk all the way to the pot.

     Not only have I had to buy special canvases for this commission but I had to get a special easel too. The two I have couldn’t accommodate this big a work. Trick of the trade: befriend the canvas guy.

     Ray Toro is my big haired, local framer and canvas dude. He supplies me with all my painting materials but we also went to school together and just stayed friends. When I told him about the commission he was so excited for me he said I didn’t have to pay for the canvases until I got paid in general.

      “Oh, you’re going to need a new easel aren’t you?! I’ll get you the number of this guy in the south, he’ll give you one cheap,” he grinned this at me over his mug.

       “Great! Thanks!” I’d smiled.

       “Will you be able to afford it? Do you want a loan? Just until you get paid because Tom will do it cheap but not that cheap.” Ray is all sunshine and helpfulness I feel like the shitty one in this friendship. I mean, he gives all the time where as I can give him nothing except weird ass drawings and comic prototypes. But still I took the loan because fuck it I need that easel.

 

Mikey comes over one week into the painting. I’ve only got the beginning of the red sunset painted and the lilac base of the dawn. This could be actually fucking pretty, something I’m not used to doing.

      “I think I know a saying about red sunsets,” Mikey says from my couch. He’s flicking through a Women’s Weekly magazine he got from their offices across the river. He was there earlier today fixing a fuse their printers blew.

      “Oh yea?” I say through my cigarette. I’m lying half out the window so as not to smoke damage the painting. “What is it?”

      “Uh. Red sky at night, shepherds delight. That rhymes so that’s probably it. Look at this,” he holds up the magazine, “it says “has this girl got a bun in the oven?” She doesn’t even look a little bit pregnant. What the fuck is wrong with people, maybe she just isn’t finished running off that grape she had at Christmas.”

      “Maybe,” I say, flicking the butt out the window, “Or maybe she is carrying alien babies that are going to eat the staff of Women’s Weekly when they’re born to avenge their vessel.”

      “Maybe you’ve watched alien too much.”

      “No such thing, brother. Now shut the fuck up I need to paint this café.” I dip the paint brush into the pre-mixed colour. All I have on this scene is the dramatic red sky with proper gold sun and dark auburn clouds. It looks fucking unrealistic but if you live in a gold trimmed mansion on top of the world what do you really care for realism

 

It takes me three weeks just to do the first part of the commission. The Early Sunset over Monroeville includes anonymous figures, old shops (looking a lot more polished because I know that’s what Katelyn Iero would prefer) and a dramatic skyline broken up by trees and buildings. If I can boast, even if I can’t I will, it’s pretty fucking good. My best to be honest.

      That’s why after I send photos of the finished piece to Katelyn Iero I begin work on the dawn. I’m hoping the next piece to be even better.

      It takes me an embarrassingly long time to mix the right shade of violet to compliment the flat lilac of the already painted sky. When I finally do I’m so sick of it that I just dash it on unevenly in the general shape of clouds. It literally looks like a storm is brewing. Maybe a purple dawn means Shepherd’s get the fuck out. It doesn’t rhyme so that’s probably not it.

 

The thing about late March is that you assume the weather will be nicer but it isn’t. I slip in puddles of icy water as Mikey and I try and walk the paintings out of my cramped apartment and into the van he borrowed from work to get it framed. I slip on the bottom step landing on my ass and the half of the painting I was carrying comes crashing into my stomach, barely missing my balls.

      “Ow fuck!” I cry. Suddenly the weight is lifted off me. The angel seems to be wearing all black, just like me.

      “Are you okay?” my saviour says, a dark knight against the bright grey of the clouds.

      “Yea, ow, shit fuck, yea,” I mumble as I pull myself from the ground. The guy now holding my half of the paining is a regular of the bar, Dan. “Here I can take it now, thanks though,” I say picking up the bottom of the canvas.

      “It’s cool, do you mind if I, uh, see?” the British accent just seems so off in the middle of Jersey.

      “Uh yea, here,” I say and Dan runs around behind me to have a look. He gasps and says “fucking hell,” in a little gasp.

      “Dan’s your biggest fan,” another British voice says, this one belonging to Phil.

      “He’d also happen to be my only fan then,” I laugh. “I’m sorry but I’ve got to get these to the framers before noon, I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re in the bar?”

      “Yup, yes,” Dan says smiling before him and Phil walk awkwardly into the bar. I can’t believe I have a fan that’s not my grandmother.

      We get the other painting in and drive slowly to Ray’s. “All I’m saying is if you got that lime green frame you’d seriously fuck up their system,” Mikey says as we carry the Late Dawn into the shop.

      “But then I wouldn’t get paid, bro. And if I don’t get paid how am I going to afford all that vodka we’re planning on,” I say very seriously. A woman turns around in shock and lays a protective hand on her kids’ shoulders. Looks like the type of mom who would drive a Chrysler minivan and complain to the manager of a restaurant if she saw a gay couple. They were looking at anniversary silver photo frames but their attention now lies on the fat gay artist entering the room.

      “Hi Gerard!” Ray says from behind the frame covered front desk. “Put that on in the back room you know where.”

       I can all but hear the mother scowl as I shuffle into the framing room. When we come back in with the second painting she’s tapping a silver frame and asking if he has any in actual gold. In the safety of the closet Mikey and I burst out laughing, “In gold? What the fuck!”

      “I don’t know exactly, but a frame that size would need a shit ton of actual gold.”  
      “Couldn’t she just get a kid to make a macaroni one?”

      When we re-emerge the woman is gone and Ray is rubbing his brow. “She wants a pure gold frame…”

      “Is she stupid?” I ask standing opposite him.

      “I told her to go to a guild with that sort of order. Why couldn’t she just buy the silver like any other logical human being?”

      “Some people are dumb.”

      “Yup.”

 

I’m so nervous to deliver the paintings the next day. I’ve worked on them a while and now I get to hand them to this rich woman and yea… It’s terrifying really.

      Mikey stands with me in the elevator, helping to hold to the dawn scene upright.

      We shuffle it awkwardly onto the landing and I hold it while Mikey rings the doorbell.

      “Gerard! Oh how exciting bring it in!” Katelyn gushes when I wave at her from behind the gold frame. I had to gold trim the painting for her.

      “The other one is in the van in the car park,” I explain as we lean the painting against the wall. In my room this painting looked massive, but here it’s dwarfed by the endless gold trimmed cream.

       “Yes, yes, go get it!” she smiles, clasping her hands in front of her chest like she’s about to burst into prayer out of delight…

      “I think she likes it,” I whisper to Mikey in the elevator. He claps slowly.

      We stand in the elevator with the sunset scene with a middle aged woman in a ball gown giving us weird looks. I have an unbelievable urge to give her weird looks back but that probably wouldn’t have been well received.

       A hand juts in stopping the doors closing. Now bang free, I recognise the small guy as Frank. “Mrs Carter,” he says nodding to the overdressed woman.

       “Frank.”

       The rest of the elevator is awkwardly silent. Frank makes an “oh” noise when we get out at his level. “You’re the artist my wife hired, right?” he says.

       “Yup… Yes.” Mikey and I awkwardly carry in the painting as he holds open his front door for us.

      We line up the painting with the other one and Katelyn Iero all but passes out. “Oh, my. Oh Frank, darling look!”

       “They’re really amazing,” Frank says walking up next to his wife.

       “I’ll hang them up for you?” I offer. Katelyn nods, tears coming to her eyes. Mikey and I drill in the nails and lift the paintings on to them. The paintings set each other off beautifully and make the room look less of a creamy hell.

       “Oh I love them,” Katelyn says again once they’re hung. “I have your money in here one sec, will cash do?”

       My eyes light up, “Indeed it will!” Katelyn clacks off on her heels toward what I assume is the bedroom. Frank smiles at me and awkwardly rocks back on his heels. How is he a lawyer with a scorpion tattoo on his neck…?

       Katelyn returns with massive piles of cash, banded into bundles of an unimaginable large amount of money. Oh god and it’s all mine. Oh. “I think we should invite the artist to the party Saturday, Katelyn. We are after all celebrating his paintings,” Frank smiles.

      Katelyn’s eyes widen as if to tell Frank to shut the fuck up. “I suppose we should,” she says before pursing her lips. “We are having a cocktail party Saturday. You may come.”

      “Okay cool,” I say. I think I will come and drink those cocktails that’ll probably cost more than my apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello :3 here is another chapter :)) sorry, i need to get Frank in more xD don't fret he will be in like all the next chapter and yea... Thanks for reading! Let me know whatcha think and i'll try get the next chapter up quick :*


	4. Four

I had four shots of a bottle of vodka before I got out of Mikey’s car in the car park outside the Iero’s apartment building. I was going to bring it to the party along with a tin of Ray’s unbelievably good chocolate puddings. I still have the tin now in the elevator but Mikey told me vodka really is low class. I mean I was going to bring tequila and thought that the vodka was a massive upgrade.

      Then Mikey reminded me that champagne exists and you can buy Scotch that’s as old as I am and suddenly vodka looks like white-trash froot shoots.

     The elevator stops finally at the top floor. The light sound of Coldplay burning my ears through the walls. I knock on the door and straighten my slacks and shirt. I wore this to a wedding and I still feel underdressed when Frank opens the door. “Hi Mr Iero,” I say.

     “Whoa, you can call me Frank you know,” he smiles. “Come on in.”

     The music is actually much quieter than I anticipated and it’s graciously drowned out by the loud chatter. The women are all dressed for a cocktail party, I guess because it is one, but I’ve never been to one so I’m only guessing. As I awkwardly follow Frank to the back of the room where the drinks are laid out I over hear a woman call her purse a steal at seven hundred dollars. Automatically I think that meant she stole it but if you’re of this high a class I doubt you’d ever need to steal anything.

     “Want a cocktail?” Frank says when we reach the table.

     “Uh yes please.”

     “What type?”  
     “Um… What do you recommend?”

     Frank smiles at me. I can’t tell if he’s smiling in pity or amusement at the fact the only thing on the table I recognise is Bacardi. I’m a bartender I should know this shit.

     “Heavy or light weight?” he whispers.

     “Heavy, but I may have taken shots already today.”

     He grins, “okay I’d say have a mojito. They’re fucking delicious and you can control how much rum you put in. So I’m starting you off with a shot.” I look offended and he grins again. “When my wife gets tipsier you can have more, deal?”

      I grin back, this guy is infectious, “deal.”

      He expertly mixes the ice and mint and sugar with a kind shot of rum hands me the drink. When we turn around Katelyn is standing behind us. Lips pursed, she’s measuring me carefully, staring down my outfit. I stiffen under such fucking scrutiny.

      “Hello Gerard.”

      “Hi Mrs Iero.” I try a smile but it’s not returned. Okay maybe I’m not fucking high class enough for her. I try then returning her look of contemplation and over pursed lips look her black dress up and down. Something tells me it costs more than my flat. I guess for all the money it obviously cost it’s not that nice. Actually it’s just a plain piece of black cloth. I smile up at her again.

      She then snaps around to address the room. “Ehem, excuse me,” she says in a brief lawyer voice. “It gives me great joy to be able to present the artist of the evening, Gerard Way!” She then lifts a hand and claps against her martini glass, rings clinking. The rest of the room follows suit.

     After that Frank says he wants to introduce me to some people. “Is this what an exhibition opening feels like?” he asks as we step down amongst the crowd.

     “I dunno, I’ve never had one.”

     “What? Really?” he asks. “Where do you show your art then?”

     “I don’t,” I laugh, “not really. I’m on a lot of websites and yea a few galleries have one or two of my pieces but they’re all, like, terrible.”

     “Hardly,” he smiles warmly and I blush. Why, why do I blush? He turns toward a group of people. “Anyway, Mikey?! Hey Mikey, this is the artist, Gerard. Gerard this is my friend Mikey Chapman.”

      “Hello,” I say awkwardly.

      “Hey,” he smiles, “you’re a fucking talented artist!”

      “Oh, thanks!”

      “You’re welcome. Hey Frankie, when can we choose the music?” _Frankie._

“Just let the others drink a little more and then we can quietly introduce it into the background. What kind of music do you like Gerard?” That is the question that can get me condemned as a Satanist.

      “Uh, lots of different stuff. Like, from Bowie to Iron Maiden,” I hope that’s an okay answer.

      “Do you like the misfits?” Frank asks. I nod and his expression softens incredibly.

      “Good.” Mikey smiles.

      “Wait, you’re not planning on jumping straight into misfits are you?” I ask.

      “Yea, why?” Frank says. Both of the guys stare at me questioningly.

      “Um… Like start with maybe the Smiths and move to Bowie and gradually get heavier then no one will notice.”

     They both seem to consider this. After a few seconds Frank says, “Actually yes. I’ll start now. The smiths, yea?”

     “Yea.”

     Beautifully Frank and Mikey create a scale of heaviness. They start with the Smiths, Queen, Bowie, the Smashing Pumpkins, and beyond.

     When the rich get drunk it’s just the same as the bar at two am. Except slightly more heterosexual. The girls spill their multi coloured cocktails on their expensive shoes. The guys get angry and argue constantly over things like whether or not black is a colour and whether or not Blink-182 are actually punk or the subgenre of pop punk (something I feverishly discuss with Mikey Chapman as I drink more and more mixed drinks).

      By the time I decide I should go home I’ve received a million compliments on my “Late Dawns and Early Sunsets over Monroeville” and have been introduced to the whole room. The woman who was looking to buy a gold frame in Ray’s was there with her equally annoying husband. Frank admits that he doesn’t like either of them but they’re his wife’s boss and her husband. After a while the woman, Miranda Carter, calls me rude and uncivilised and I called her a flat chested prat. Thankfully only Frank heard. He just burst out laughing and refused to tell Mrs Carter “what was so damn funny.”

     The Misfits are playing proudly in the background as I call a taxi from Frank’s phone. They play it just quietly enough that the rest of the room doesn’t throw a bitch fit but Mikey, Frank and I can feel successful in our mission.

      I take the elevator down with two girls called Veronica and Jung. Friends of Katelyn I’m told. The only girls who didn’t cast dirty looks at me the entire time I was there or tell me that their manicure cost as much as my entire outfit (thanks to Frank’s co-worker Janet) or that their shoes cost more than I made in a year (thanks to some Hannah girl).

      “Do you have a lift waiting?” Jung asks as we step out of the elevator.

      “Uh yea, I called a taxi.” This rich few streets are the only place in the state you don’t walk out the door and into a taxi. Literally everywhere else is lined with yellow cars whereas here is lined with BMWs and Lamborghinis.

       “Oh okay. Nice to meet you artist Gerard,” Jung says. She and Veronica smile airily at me before stumbling off toward a Mercedes. I make my way to the yellow taxi sitting on the curb.

      All the way back I try push through the fuzzy feeling in my brain to try and process my thoughts. Why do I have an urge to talk to Frank again? And Mikey, but mainly Frank. And why do I have an urge to ask him about the scorpion on his neck, and how he got a law job. Or how come he works in law because he seems so… punk? And how he ever got with Katelyn. And why do I have this weird fucking urge to call him Frankie.

       I rub my eyes but it doesn’t help focus my vision. I rub my stomach but I still feel sick but I couldn’t be that drunk…

       When I get home I lie on the now clear main room floor. I keep wondering if it would be weird to make a comic book character that is cream and gold trimmed and had the power to change the stock markets and create inflation.

       I believe that it is weird but I get up and walk over to my desk and design it anyway. I think it should be a girl and she should definitely not look like Katelyn Iero.

      The finished character looks remarkably like who it shouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dia Dhuit (hello in irish sorry I'm in the middle of homework)... So here is yet another chapter. This may or may not have taken a turn for the very weird but whatever. The speed with which i'm writing this on a FRiday night really shows a lot about my social life... anyway thank you very much for reading and pretty please let me know how you find it :))))


	5. Five

I’m buying a new Slipknot shirt six days later when my phone rings. “Um hello?” I say to the blocked phone number.

      “Hi Gerard. My name is Mikey Chapman, do you remember me from Frank’s?”

       “Yes, hi Mikey..?”

      “Um I got your number from Katelyn, I would like to talk to you about a commission? Is there somewhere like a bar or a coffee house where we could meet up?” He sounds different than I recall. Maybe it’s the phone, or maybe it’s the no alcohol in either of us…

      “Yea that would be great, um where would you like to meet?” I can’t really ask him to the bar, he might take that the wrong way.

      “Eh, somewhere we could both locate is probably Café le Mode, excuse the up its own ass name, it’s around the block from Frank’s.”

      “Cool. When?” I start searching for money in the small ass pockets of my skinny jeans for money.

      “Um are you free today?”

      _No not really, I have a shift at the bar_ “I think so. I have a shift at work but I’m sure my boss could cover me for an hour or so…” Bob is going to slay me.

       “I don’t want to get you in trouble with work, man. Want to meet there at four?”

       “Yea sure. See you then.”

       “Bye.”

       I buy the shirt and begin walking toward Frank’s. It will take me maybe forty minutes to get to Frank’s and it’s ten past three. That gives me some time to get lost and turned around.

       I call Bob as I wait for the lights to let me cross the road. “Hey Bob, could you cover me fort half an hour/forty five minutes.”

     “What, why?” He sounds gruff but not particularly pissed off.

     “I have a meeting with a new client at four on the other side of town.”

     “Another rich one?”

     “Yup.”

     “Okay go for it but if you’re not back by six I’m sending a hunting party after you.”  
     “Thanks Bob.”

     “Fuck off.”

     I may have earned more money from the last two pieces than I could ever like dream but I already have half of it spent on paying off loans and buying new art materials. I also started investing in driving lessons but until I get a fucking licence I have to continue to walk everywhere, still too cheap to buy taxis.

     When I finally locate Café le Mode it is three minutes to four. The little café has a purple and bluer interior with gold trimming. I’m beginning to think that gold trimming means something that the poor of Jersey just aren’t told about.

     I order an Americano and take a seat in the corner. Mikey isn’t here yet so I take the spare few minutes to measure up the people around me. One of them I recognise as Katelyn’s sister Liza. She sits with some young man. Liza shares Katelyn’s thin frame and sharp features. The poor sister both have a bitchy resting face, like the very structure of their features make them mean. Like their snobbery is engrained in their genetic makeup.

      I don’t hate Katelyn Iero. I can’t, she got me out of serious debt and introduced me to the magic of gold trimming. And Frank, he seems so cool that I can’t hate his wife.

      But that doesn’t make her any less shoved up her own ass.

      Some of the other people send fleeting glances at me, wondering if I’m a wealthy man dressed like a hobo, or a hobo who found three dollars and decided to buy coffee with it.

      Mikey comes in at two minutes past four. When he spots me he checks his watch. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”

      “Um no, no,” I look down at my almost empty cup, “I just drink coffee fast.”

      “Can I get you another one,” he says as opposed to asks. He orders another Americano for me and a double shot Latte for himself and then sits down opposite me.

      “Okay well I was over at Frank’s again recently and yea I really fucking love your paintings and what it does to the room. It bring s colour into the otherwise cream room. And I know frank’s delighted because he hates all that cream and your big reds and indigos are fucking perfect.” He pauses then as a waiter puts our coffee on the table. We both smile up a silent thanks. “So I was wondering if I could get you to do a piece for my house. If you’re interested you can come over and see what colours you think are needed.”

      “Whoa, okay yea sure! Of course I’m interested.”

      “Okay so… when are you free to visit? I can pick you up because my home isn’t the easiest to find.”

      “Well I can tomorrow, if you’re free?” I wonder if his house is as gold trimmed as this place, and the Iero’s.

      “Yea sure! Okay where will I pick you up from?”

      I then spend about eight minutes trying to explain where my flat is before giving up and saying to get me from the shopping mall a twenty minute walk away.

      “Oh by the way,” Mikey says as he drinks the last of his Latte. I finished mine a while ago. “Frank tells me to apologise to you for the hostility of some of the guests and specifically Katelyn. She’s just not used to people who don’t wear designer shit.” He smiles warmly. “Anyway I’ll pick you up there then at midday?”

      “Yea sure,” I reply. It’s decided, not all of the upper class are assholes.

 

I wake up at eleven the next morning and quickly change into clothes that don’t smell bad. I drink a pot of coffee and clean up some of the papers until I find a shoe and then run out the door.

     It’s April now but by the lack of green in this part of town you couldn’t tell. I cross the grey of the pavement to the black of the road to the grey again.

     Mikey is in good time and pulls up in a silver three year old Mercedes. “Your car looks so out of place here,” I say as I sit in the passenger seat.

     He laughs, “Yea just a bit.”

     We drive north and north and then around several corners into a tree lined street. There are pink petals strewn across the road and there are expensive looking cars parked in front expensive looking garages which make me think that there must be even more expensive cars inside the expensive garages.

      And the houses are huge. Like all are three or four floors and all have balconies and shit cropping out. Mikey slows and pulls in to one with large black electric gates. He presses something on his keys and they open admitting us to this fucking urban palace.

      “So this is my house,” he says humbly.

      “Fucking hell, how many bathrooms do you have?” I don’t know why but I felt the need to ask this.

      “Six, I have no idea why, I only ever use two.”

      “Do you live in your own?” I see no reason one person would need so much space.

      He laughs, “Yes I do actually, it’s just me and my dogs… Come on I’ll show you where I think I need some art.”

       We walk in and are immediately greeted by his flatmates, the dogs. His main hall is thankfully not cream, it’s light blue. He leads me into a living room and I immediately see where art is needed. Three walls are covered in shelves and then a flat screen TV. Between two windows sits an expansive black couch. The dogs jump up on it and stare at me as I stare at the big blank wall behind it. “There?” I say pointing at the wall.

      “Yup. What do you think?” Mikey says next to me.

      “Well you’re lucky that you don’t have cream walls or gold trimming on everything because it could be anything really,” I say. The walls are white and the window frames are dark brown wood. The shelving is the same colour wood and so is the floor. The room just needs colour, really.

     “So what do you suggest,” he asks again.

     “Well, what’s your favourite colour?”

      “Um blue I guess, is that boring?”

      “No, not really. What kind of blues? Like oceans? Mountains? Would you like it to be a painting of something specific like a scene or would you like it to be something weird and random or like a person.”

     “I guess a scene but if you could make it weird and random?”

     “Yea, I could. So what kind of scene?”

     “I like what you said about maybe an ocean.”

     “How about like a boat sinking into the deep or a sea monster or…”

     “Could you do a boat sinking into the deep because of a storm?”

     “Yes. Yes I definitely could.” After that we discuss the details of the sale. I measure the canvas and agree to Mikey paying me ten thousand dollars.

     “I know it’s not as much as Katelyn paid you…” he begins.

     “No don’t worry it’s still a lot. Like an awful lot. I’m poor, you see.”  
     “Well, okay. If you’re sure. I mean you are the artist, I just don’t really have more than that to spend on a painting…”

     “Then you’re a logical person. I’ll be like between two and a half to three weeks?”

     “Okay, great! Can I drop you home?”

     “That would be really great, yes.”

 

I start work on the Captain Lost At Sea piece as quickly as possible. I like having something specific to do. Four days in I walk to a Walmart behind the mall Mikey Chapman picked me up from, with Mikey, my brother. He’s got a new girlfriend and that seems to be the main point of interest at the moment.

     “She has a great music taste!” Mikey muses as we each put coffee into our trollies. “We actually made out to the Smashing Pumpkins. You know I’ve been waiting for this since middle school!”

     “I know,” I smile. Dork.

     “Gerard?” I turn around expecting to see someone who knew me from the bar.

     “Frank?” I say in astonishment.

     “Yea. Hi.”

     “Hi.”

     There’s a moment of awkward silence as I immediately begin to think up of reasons Frank would be in a Walmart and try match them with reasons he’s be _here._ “So… do you shop here often?” I say eventually. He’s carrying a basket occupied only by blue cheese and some type of fish.

      “Yea, you?”

      “I do. Why?”

      “What?”

      “I’m just wondering why you shop here. I mean it’s not particularly easy to get to from yours…”

     He reddens slightly, “That’s true. But there’s a shortage of supermarkets in my area.”

     “So you come to this one?” Well that’s fucking weird.

     “Yea, I mean it’s cheaper than the one’s closest to me.” Mikey starts laughing next to me. I just don’t understand this at all.

     “Um want to walk with us?” I smile, why am I asking this?

     “Sure.” He smiles and hesitates before walking up next to me and picking up a jar of coffee that’s almost twice the price of what Mikey and I drink.

     We walk around then, through each aisle picking up whatever we need. “So Mikey says you’re doing a painting for his living room?” My brother raises his eyebrows at his name.

      “Oh yea, I’m going over to his tomorrow actually to try different frames with the room.”

      “Really? Mikey and I are going out tomorrow so I might see you there,” he smiles warmly. This is really weird but… it doesn’t feel weird. In fact it all feels like some shitty reality TV show where I’m being set up in one aspect but everything else just feels normal. I look around for cameras.

     The conversation is really normal then, just about certain food and how Frank still struggles to get served.

     We say goodbye to Frank in the carpark and Mikey and I both immediately say, “Well that was fucking random.”

      In the safety of his car, Mikey begins talking. “Okay if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s married to a woman and is living in a house full of crucifix’s I’d think he likes you.”

      “What?” I cough out in alarm.

      “Yea,” Mikey slams in the breaks as some kids run across the road in front of us.

      “But… why?”

      “He was looking at you like that kinda thing and he was shopping in _our_ Walmart. Like far away from his home and surrounded by people who couldn’t afford a meter of that golden skirting boards his apartment is full of.”

      I think this over for a minute before speaking. “But he’s married to a woman and just doesn’t seem to swing that way.”

      “Okay, okay but don’t be surprised if he turns up in your bar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo,   
> This fic is going to be a lot longer than i anticipated, whoa. I had planned to be this far into the story by chapter three but whatever, sorry XD If i did it any faster i think it would have been just weird.  
> So yea i'll have another one up tomorrow i think, as always thank you for reading and let me know what you think ^-^


	6. Six

You know when you learn a new word and then suddenly you hear it everywhere. Well that’s kind of what happened with Frank, I saw him in Walmart once and then suddenly he’s there every single time. We just make it a thing after the third time that we walk together. Sometimes he only needs a bottle of champagne or bread and I need a week’s supply of instant noodles and coffee, other times we both need a full cart of food. Frank introduced me to the wonders of grass fed mince beef and I show him Nutella.

      Two weeks after our first random encounter I’m putting the finishing touches to Mikey’s painting. It looks really fucking cool, I know that sounds boastful but it really does. Mikey, my brother, and I decide to go out to a bar that isn’t Bob’s to celebrate the fact that that I’ll have made sixty thousand dollars from three paintings.

       Mikey chose the bar because all I know really is Bob’s. We park in the parking lot across the road and jog through the unmoving traffic to the small bar.

       “So I think I’ll break up with her,” Mikey says as I push open the bar door.

       “You’re way too flippant about relationships bro,” I say.

       “What?”

       “I think it means you don’t care as much.” I take a bar stool and Mikey takes the one next to me.

       “You should stop using words if you’re not sure what they mean.”

       “I’m pretty sure of what it means. Anyway stop changing the subject-”

       “Gerard?”  

       “Okay this is getting fucking weird,” I say as I turn around. Sure enough Frank is sitting there, with Mikey Chapman. This is becoming worse than the time I learned what vertigo was and not only started hearing it everywhere, but found out I had it. “Hi guys.”

       “Are you following me or something,” Frank grins. I think I see his neck flush but bar lighting is weird.

       “I’d ask you the same thing only this is my first time here,” I grin. “Oh, um, Mikey my brother, this is Mikey who I’m doing the painting for. Mikey my commissioner, this is my brother, Mikey.”

       Both Mikey’s smile somewhat awkwardly. “Em, do you want to sit with us?” Frank asks.

       Conversation is difficult to make flow at all at first. It usually is Frank and his Mikey talking about things in the presence of my Mikey and I, and vice versa.

       Eventually we reach the common ground of music. “No way!” one Mikey says to the other, “No _way_ are the Foo Fighters better than Queens of the Stone Age!”

       The best thing about this bar is they have a juke box. At about ten o’clock I race Frank to it to put on some music of our choice. “Look you can put on five songs for every two dollars,” I grin.

       “I’ll put in the money so you get two songs and I get three,” Frank says diplomatically.

       “Fiiiine,” I say and we grin at each other as the machine verifies Frank’s money. “I’m choosing Bohemian Rhapsody,” I state as Frank skirts through the limited Misfits.

       “You’ll get your turn in a minute,” he hiccups gracelessly. “First I’m choosing Halloween by the Misfits because my birthday is Halloween.”

       “That’s honestly such a cool birthday,” I say.

       “I know. Though I like it less the older I get.”

       “How did you ever get with your wife?”

       “That’s a random thing to ask,” Frank says as he pauses over two Guns and Roses songs. “We did law together. She’s younger than me though because I refused to go to Uni for a year, convinced my old band would get off the ground.”

       “You were in a band?”

       “Yea, that’s where most of my tattoos came from. I got the scorpion to try and make sure that no one ever hired me.” I laugh even though Frank doesn’t. “They did though. Parents pulling strings and shit.”

       “So what you married her before you were even out of college?”

       “Yea, kinda trying to prove my straightness to my parents so they wouldn’t disinherit me. Also because I loved her.”

       “Loved?”

       “Loved. Your turn,” he steps aside as the Bruno Mars song currently playing finishes and Halloween begins. I’m not sure what Frank means by loved. Wouldn’t he, shouldn’t he use the present tense. Am I thinking way too into this?

     Probably. “Okay Bohemian Rhapsody and some fucking Bowie I think.” I scroll through the collection of Bowie, none jumping out at me. “Or maybe Ziggy Stardust time.”

     When we get back to our seats the Mikey’s are in deep conversation and the next round of drinks is on the table. “So my electrician is cheating me by not tightening the screws on the box?”

     “Not _fully_ tightening. It’s an old trick, when you replace the fuse and don’t fully retighten the box it’ll trip again and again.”

     “Bastard. How do I fix it?”

     “Um you should not do it yourself. Next time it trips and you call your electrician out and tell him to fully screw it back in.”

     “Maybe I should change Electrician Company.”

     “My brother makes sales not friends,” I grin.

     “Shut the fuck up Gee, I have more friends than you,” my brother grins. It’s sad but very true. I have two friends and a brother.

      “Whatever,” I grin.

      Mikey writes down his company’s number on a beer mat and passes it to the other Mikey. “Just ask for Mikey and I won’t fuck you over I promise.”

      “I’m going to the bathroom,” I announce for no real reason.

      “Don’t!” Mikey Chapman protests.

      “What, why the fuck not?”

      “You don’t want to break the chain.”  
      “What?”

      “You know, break the chain? If you piss once, you’ll need to go again and again the whole night.”

      I lasted another eight minutes before I broke the chain. Just like he said though I was up and down to the mens room every few minutes thereafter.

      As the rounds pass Mikey Chapman drinks us all under the table. “Congratulations on being the most heavyweight,” I slur. “You have to call the taxi.”

      “Waaaaait,” Frank protests, “Call like three.”

      “Oh yea we’re all going different places,” I say searching my pockets for my keys.

      “Frank, your car is in mine so come back with me anyway,” Mikey Chapman says handing Frank his coat.

      “Oh yeaaa.”

      “We’ll take a different because we’re going that-a-way,” I say throwing my arm out in the general direction of my house.

      Outside Mikey and I sway together as the ginger Mikey waves us down a cab. “Oh, I never said, I’m bringing your painting to the framers tomorrow,” I tell Mikey as I collapse into the cab.

      “Okay, that’s great Gerard, see you soon!”  

 

Mikey and I awkwardly carry the canvas into Ray’s the next morning in silence. The hangovers leaving us silent and wincing as the light reflects off the glass doors. “Hi Gerard, hi Mikey.” Ray says as I back my way into the frame filled room.

      “Hey Ray,” we say in unison and we carry the painting into the backroom. There are a lot more paintings in here than last time. At least Ray is getting more business.

        I’d already chosen the frame for this piece, a dark brown double level one that matches the colour of the rest of the room, according to my memory.

        “I’ll be with you in one second Gerard,” Ray smiles before ducking into the backroom. He reemerges after a minute or so, holding up a forefinger. He walks over to his shop phone and starts dialing a number. “Hello, Adam? Yes, there are only eight pieces here as I’ve said before. If you drop me in the other two you think you need done I’ll do you up a new deal, okay? Bye now, bye.”

     Mikey is poking around the small photo frames behind us. “These have names on ‘em,” he muses looking at silver ones. “None say Mikey.”

     “They’re usually for babies but I can get Mikey written on one if you want,” Ray says from behind the counter.

     “It’s okay, actually.”

     “So Gerard, another big commission,” Ray says as I feel around my jeans pockets for the money.

     “Yep. Don’t worry I’ll still buy frames here if I become super famous,” I grin at him, finally finding the scrunched up green notes.

     “Yea, you better. It’s been a long time since we hung out, want to come over for dinner next week?”

     “I would love to,” I smile. Ray hands me my change and says I can collect it tomorrow at midday.

     “That’d be great. And Wednesday yea?”

     “Yes, if you can.”

     “I’ll check my schedule,” I laugh, it’s been practically empty since my mom stopped organising it. “See ya Ray.”

     “Bye guys.

  
   

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo  
> Do you ever listen to a song you never really paid that much attention to and realise suddenly that it is incredibly underrated, by you. Idk i just did it with three songs (I never told you what I did for a living (MCR obviously), Blue and Yellow (the used) and Kill Me (the Pretty Reckless)).  
> I just felt i had to share this revelation, sorry XD anyway here is yet another chapter for you to either enjoy or deeply judge me for, thanks for reading and let me know what you think :D


	7. Seven

“I love it,” Mikey the ginger says as I step away from his newly adorned wall. “Like honestly love it. I wish I had your talent.”

    “It really is really good,” Frank muses. It’s a Monday and neither lawyers are at work.

     “Thank you. I’m just glad you like it,” I smile. I get this amazing feeling when people compliment my art. It’s like here’s this thing _I_ made that formed within _my_ mind and _you_ like it. Just awesome.

     “My brother got all the creativity,” my brother muses from a few feet behind me.

     “Yea but you’re more musical, you can play an instrument,” I point out. My brother happens to be capable of playing the bass.

     “You can sing though,” Mikey points out.

     “Mikey C here can also sing,” Frank says raising his eyebrows testily at his friend.

     “So can Frank though, and he can play guitar,” Mikey retorts.

     “I sound like a whiny teenage boy,” Frank laughs.

      The sudden argument of “I suck you’re good” escalates rapidly and we all end up sitting around Mikey’s computer to watch youtube clips of when Frank was in that band before college.

      “Well my favourite song there has to be Fat and alone,” I laugh, “It is literally the story of my life, or at least at that age.”

      Frank grins, “And I wondered for ages why we didn’t get big.”

      After five minutes of searching they found a youtube clip of that New Jersey interschool’s talent show I entered as a fat senior. My brother and I are almost crying with laughter as the memories flood back thanks to a video taken on someone’s blokia. “Oh god, Gerard, you were just…” Mikey says through fits of laughter. The other two guys are grinning but obviously not wanting to offend me.

      After about an hour longer than I expected to be here, my brother and I finally take our leave. After a moment of hesitation at the door Frank finally blurts, “do you guys want to hang out again?”

      “Yea! Yea sure…” I say, cursing my overenthusiasm.

      “Cool, we’ll text you.”

      “Awesome, see ya.”

      “Bye.”

 

“I can’t believe you’re making friends with the rich,” Ray says, spooning steak and kidney pie onto my plate. At the rate I’m now being paid I could nearly hire Ray as my personal chef and I’d probably be better off. He lives in the two cramped floors above the frame shop. There’s a sitting room/dining room are and a kitchen on one floor and two tiny bedrooms upstairs. Ray owns a total of one whole bathroom but I guess why would he need more? He has a girlfriend but she lives in New York. For such a small space you’ve got to hand it to Ray that he keeps it well. Tonight I’m eating here with Bob and Ray.

      “Don’t forget us when you become rich and famous,” Bob grumbles lightly.

     “I’d never forget you guys, you’re my squad!”

     “Never call us that again.”

     “Okay, sorry, but honestly, you guys are my favourites and I’m keeping you.”

     “I’m just so happy for you,” Ray hums as he begins to eat.  “I mean, it’s great that you’re coming into money but you’re also broadening your circle, as my mom would say, and I guess that’s an important thing. You can’t have just two friends.”

     “I also have Mikey,” I point out, reaching across the table to get another spoonful of peas.

     “Oh Mr popular, two friends and a brother. Not healthy man,” Bob says.

     “Well I lasted on that for a while,” I say defensively. It’s not my fault I’m just not likeable.

     “And look how great your mental health was. I’m just saying more friends is a good thing,” Ray smiles broadly at me. I nod and finish eating.

    

 _Hi Gerard it’s Frank, Mikey and I are going to the bar wanna meet there?_ I had been waiting embarrassingly excitedly for this text. Saturday night, the bar will be pretty full and pretty much entirely made up of straight people. I haven’t been hit on by a girl in so long…

      I immediately text Mikey asking him if he’d like to come. I want to go but not just with them.

      _Want to go to that bar tonight with Frank and The Other Mikey?_ I stare at my phone until it lights up moments later. _Sure._

      I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I find the only clean shirt in the whole flat, a slightly too tight Iron Maiden shirt, and the only pair of black skinnys not fatally stained. I search for about half an hour until I find my leather jacket. I live in such a cramped space why the fuck can I never find anything.

     Mikey lets himself in. Since I gave him a key he hasn’t rang the doorbell. Sometimes he just wanders in when I’m asleep or in the shower and takes my coffee. He only lives a block away so he sees no problem with just turning up.

     “Ready?” he asks as I, obviously not ready, am still searching for a sock.

     “No.”

     “Need help?”

     “Nope.”

     “Okay… Well hurry the fuck up.”

     My ability to never find my socks or shirts or jackets makes me want to wash my clothes more.

     “Okay let’s go,” I mumble, pulling on a sock I found that’s completely splattered with white paint.

     We get to the bar and find Frank and Mikey sitting in the same corner where we joined them last time. Mikey orders our drinks as I sit down. “Hey.”

      “Hey.”

      After a while we end up all making a bet on whether or not a girl is going to come and try chat up my brother. Both Mikey’s said no but Frank and I thought she would. She kept looking over at him and delving into whispers with her friends. I noticed that when Mikey looked over she raised her vodka and coke straw to her lips and drank from it for several seconds before swishing her hair and returning to conversation.

      “Oh come on that was so flirty,” I say.

      “How would you know, you’re gay.” I see Frank’s eyebrows raise and I shoot Mikey a testy look.

      “A, I’m not _gay._ B, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been flirted with by a girl, I’m not that ugly,” everyone laughs a little. I’ll kill Mikey later for dropping the whole g-a-y bomb.

      The winners of this bet gets to pick the music while the others pay. Sure enough one vodka and coke later the girl walks over and says, “I think I recognise you.”  
      “Did I rewire your house or something?” Mikey says dryly. He broke up with his girlfriend, immediately regretted it and when she refused to get back with him he’s claiming to be to heartbroken to even look at another girl.

      “No, I think it was something more physical,” she purrs. Frank bursts out laughing and picks up the money off the table. He grabs my arm and drags me away to choose the music leaving two Mikeys awkwardly at the table, one fending off flirting and the other watching it.

      “She was so obviously flirting fucking hell,” Frank laughs as we reach the juke box. “What songs do you want?”

      “I’ll see what they have.”

      When we get back to the table my brother is kissing vodka and coke girl. “Well that escalated quickly,” I muse.

      “Yep,” ginger Mikey laughs as we take our seats. “The two not straight people called it.”

      Frank and I share an awkward look just as Mikey finishes his drink, raising his eyebrows over the rim.

      Vodka and coke girl, Lara, and Mikey end up leaving before Mikey Chapman is even tipsy. I honestly expected the ensuing time to be awkward considering I don’t know these guys too well but I couldn’t be more wrong. We just discussed several topics and drank a lot of different drinks.

     “I have an idea,” Frank slurs at one point. For some reason I can’t stop staring at his mouth.

     “Mmmhmm what?” I reply.

     “Shots, of Jägermeister,” he grins.

     “Whoa,” Mikey says from across the table. “You guys have had enough, shots would be a _very_ bad idea.”

     “I think you are wrong,” I grin.

     “You’ve been drinking it all night, our turn,” Frank giggles before turning around to go order the shots.

      Mikey reaches out and touches my shoulder and quietly says, “Be careful.”

       After those shots the night finishes in a flurry. I remember Frank throwing up in the bathroom and Mikey calling us a cab. I try and explain where my flat is to the cab driver. I must have succeeded because I wake up there on my couch the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi :)  
> I did not think I'd get to post this today because i was supposed to be debating tomorrow but the other school cancelled... So yea here you go :)) I'll get to update again probably tomorrow and the day after and the day after because this fic is apparently going to be five chapters longer than anticipates XD sooo thanks for giving this a read and let me know what you think :*


	8. Eight

May is a beautiful month here in New Jersey to sit indoors and drink a lot of cheap alcohol with people you like. Vodka-and-coke-straw-sucking-girl must be very good in bed because Mikey agreed to meet her again and then again, each time they stayed the night at one of their house. “I don’t want to say we’re going out because I know like nothing about her and we’ve only seen each other three times…” Mikey confesed.

      “Do you even know her name,” I laugh.

      “Not funny, Gee, of course I do. It’s, eh, Lani.”

      “Huh.”

      “So what are you going to do about your situation?”

      “I don’t have a situation.” Mikey is convinced that my love life has hit tragic circumstances. Apparently I blubbered to him when I was very drunk that I’m in love with a married man.

      That was just a tad dramatic.

      And it’s not true.

     I probably didn’t even say that, Mikey is just trying to make me feel slightly insane and admit some strange infatuation with Frank Iero. Which I don’t have. I just like him as a friend, and I’m not even being clingy at that.

     “Gerard.”

     “Michael.”

     “Don’t call me Michael,” he groans. “You know what I’m saying, maybe you should take a step back, not see him for a week or two.”

     “I’m seeing him like tomorrow.” Frank, Mikey Chapman and I will be going to the bar again. I don’t feel awkward without my brother there anymore, thankfully.

     “Gerard.”

     “Michael James Way, shut the fuck up.”

     “Right, okay. But when you realise that you like him, don’t complain to me. Actually do it’ll be entertaining and I can say I told you so.”

 

The bar is pretty empty when I get there. Strange for a Friday night no matter where you go. I sit down in our corner and wait for the guys with a beer. It’s way too easy to get black out drunk when you can afford it so today I’m going to take it easy.

     “Hi Gee,” Frank says when he appears around the corner.

     “Hey,” Mikey echoes him from a few steps behind.

     “Hi guys, I didn’t order you a drink because I didn’t know how early I was,” I say as they put their stuff down at the table.

     “It’s cool I’ll get them now,” Mikey says.

     “So… how was your day?” I ask Frank as he falls into his seat.

     “Fucking terrible, man. I hate being a motherfucking soliciter sometimes. I’m dealing with three cases at the moment. Three. Two are boring and one is heart breaking, awh man.”

     “Oh?”

     “The boring ones are both divorce ones and I swear I could kill all four involved. I’m so tempted to cheating them out of all their money but that would be just not cool. This one fucking woman cheated on her husband and yet she spends eighty percent of the time crying. Like what the fuck, you screw someone else and then you’re really sorry. And don’t get me started on the other husband… Just nasty people who add hours to my day I’m assuming they’re shaving clean off my life.”

     “Fuck, that bad?”

     “Don’t work with people if you don’t like everyone. Someone should have said this to me instead of “Oh Frank being a lawyer is totally far out!””

      “Far out?”

      “I’m quoting my dad.”

      “Oh.”

      “This was him trying to reach out to me.” I laugh but Frank’s mouth only twitches. I know that Frank always makes light of whatever relationship he had with his dad but I know he still dislikes him for forcing him into law. Frank could have been in a band and been famous and cool. Or he could have been like all the other kids who try rebel against their parents and join a band and then get nowhere.

      Mikey comes back with the drinks and we launch into a debate about which beer brand is nicer. I like German beer but apparently I sound like a drinking noob.

      “Excuse me I’m a bartender,” I protest.

      “You should know this shit then, you can’t just like all German beers.”

      “Why the fuck not?” Etcetera. It’s only settled by us ordering a shot each of every beer they have which is obviously a weird sight and ends up attracting the attention of everyone else in the bar.

      “This is making me uncomfortable,” I murmur to Frank before we each try a beer called bitter which is exactly as it says on the tin. “Oh ew.”

      “Why do they keep starring?” Frank mutters and then winces at the bitter taste of bitter.

      “I have no idea,” I say shifting uncomfortably under the stares. “Maybe if we start dancing or something they’ll give us money.”

      No one seems to look at us the second we go back to drinking normal glasses. Fucking proves that people will stare you down if you don’t conform to normality. Fuck it, I’m an artist I’m going to wear eyeliner and drink shots of beer with two tattooed lawyers.

      By one am I can’t walk. Too many different types of drink probably. Frank and I slump against each other as Mikey stumbles to the bathroom. Even he’s not looking a good level of sober. Pathetic, one am and I’m already having to remind myself constantly to remember this in the morning. A trick; if you keep telling yourself you’ll remember, you probably will. I know sometimes you want to forget the shit you do but sometimes you want to save some dignity.

      Tonight was a night I held my dignity but I wish I could have forgotten it. “We should stop after this drink,” Frank slurs and points vaguely at a rum and orange he’s drinking.

      “Maybe…” I hum, “I think you said that three glasses ago.”

      “I think you’re right.”

      “I think we should ask Mikey to wave us down cabs.”

      “I think you’re hot.”

      “What?” I sit up straight, too startled to even slur my words.

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

      “It’s okay. I think you’re _very_ hot.”

      “What? Really?”

      “Maybe.” I grin at him. He’s grinning back at me. We must have looked incredibly stupid, just sitting there grinning, millimetres apart.

      Frank sits back then, suddenly aware again. He touches the place his wedding band should be and doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’ve had to tell Katelyn I’m just with Mikey every other time. She doesn’t like you.”

      “Not a lot of people do,” I admit.

      “Well I do. And she only doesn’t like you because you’re an artist and not as rich as her. Also she doesn’t say it but she doesn’t like that you’re a “homosexual”. She’s a bit homophobic.” Frank looks really sad.

      “But aren’t you…?”

      “Yea. She says that was a phase, just another way I was trying to rebel against my dad. Thinks she’s a fucking psychiatrist when really I just like guys too,” he looks at me again, “I just like you.”

       Never kiss a married person. Never do it. I have no honourable way to excuse myself from this. Just that his mouth tastes nice, even tinted with rum. And Mikey’s sudden “guys, fuck no!” ’s are a nice theme tune.

 

Mikey lets himself into my house to find me banging my head off my desk. I helped him in his task by texting him simply _you told me so._ He didn’t even bother replying.

       “Youokay?” he says in the doorway.

     “Nope.”

     “What happened?”

     “We kissed.

     Mikey takes a sharp intake of breath before pulling me off my desk and over to the couch. “Are you sure?”

     “Yea...”

     “Shit Gerard, he is _married._ ”

     “I fucking know.”

     “Okay right sorry. What are you going to do about it?”

     “I don’t know! Maybe turn into a gnome. Or get a sex change and move to Scotland under the name of Simone. I’m feminine enough.”

     “Gerard…”

     “Maybe I’ll move to Mexico under the name of Hulio El GayCunt and raise ducks. Or move too Sweden, I’m too pale for Mexico. There I can become a mountain or some shit, I don’t know what the Swedish do for fun.”

     “Fuck sake Gerard.”

     “Actually scratch Sweden, I deserve to burn in the fires of Mexico. After all, I am a home wrecker who covets his neighbour’s husband.”

     “Gerard, its Mexico not hell. Also you’re not a home wrecker!” Mikey puts his arm around my shoulders and I burst into tears like a child. “Fuck, Gerard, you need to calm yourself over this okay, you were drunk. Anyway you don’t need to do anything now okay. No emigrating, the government hates that shit.”

       “They hate immigrants not emigrants.”

       “What’s the difference, actually it doesn’t matter. You just don’t do anything, Frank needs to sort out his shit so until he does you just paint and tend that bar. I’m sure all those guys miss down there miss you as eye candy.”

      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salutations y'all.  
> I just gave myself a minor heart attack because my laptop went to sleep while i was cleaning up and i thought I'd lost this entire chapter so thank god for autosave.  
> Three bits of boring news about my life I feel like sharing: 1. I got this scaffolding piercing just before school started again and my principal only saw it today and told me to take it out. I said i physically can't it's hella dangerous and now I have detention (???). 2. I was just listening to my metalcore playlist and Weezer came on. It's just made me incredibly uncomfortable... 3. The band Architects tweeted me today only to tell me that Issues won't be supporting them so i'm shakily excited and heartbroken at the same time.  
> Thanks for reading my ramblings if you do, and most importantly thank you for reading my fan fiction(s) xD i'll update with due haste :))


	9. Nine

I waited. I didn’t try contact Frank for a week and a half. I was even too afraid to check social networks. I told myself that maybe Frank tried to contact me on them but that’s such bullshit. He has only contacted me using Facebook twice. Once just tagging me in a picture from the night of the cocktail party and once messaging me to see if I’d mind said tagging. I don’t ever use Facebook, just the thought of not using it makes me want to more…

      I work in the bar though at the moment I don’t really need to. I was tempted to upgrade apartments a few times but I probably won’t get paid that much ever again and when the money ran out I could never afford rent.

      I felt much more knowledgeable in my position now, stupidly. I guess having tasted basically every alcohol available in this state I could actually recommend drinks.

      “I’ll have two bitters,” some guy says. After I ask for ID, he only looks about 15, I ask him if he’s sure. “Yea, I think so.”

      “Bitter, you know it’s incredibly fucking bitter,” I say dryly.

      “Yea? What would you suggest instead?”

      “Like any other German beer.”

      “That’s a very large range isn’t it?” He leans in over the bar, the other guy standing awkwardly behind him. They could be just gay friends, not a gay couple. I don’t see that much but I know it’s possible. Me and Frank are the other side of that case.

      _Stop thinking about Frank you stupid fuck._

“I’ll have a Bavaria then I guess,” he hums over the noise of the bar. “Have you always worked here?”

      “Well this was my bar. But the owner is a friend of mine,” I say awkwardly as I pull his pint.

      “Friend?”

      “Yea, Bob. Only straight guy in the room,” I smile and nod toward Bob who is on the phone in the corner. I hope this isn’t interpreted as flirting.

      “Jake,” he stretches out his hand to shake my free one as I put down his glass.

      “Gerard.” I wish I had the excuse to serve someone else but there’s no one else to be served. I usually like the flirting from behind the bar but I still feel wrong thinking of anyone else. Thanks Frank, controlling my thoughts with something there never even was.

      “Got a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend if you swing like everyone else here,” he grins.

      I laugh once, “Yea I have no one and I can swing any way you want.” Okay that was flirting, fuck. The guy just grins at me.     

      “Jake!” the other guys says, still standing there behind him. “You agreed, don’t be an asshole.”  
     “Alright, okay,” Jake says standing up and handing his friend the other beer, “I’ll be back a little later, Gerard.” He walks off with his friend and I see him coaxing his friend through hitting on that guy, Dan. Poor Dan. Phil just went to the bathroom and he seems to be awkwardly trying to explain that for the two minutes before Phil returns. I feel I should go help my fan but I can’t really leave my place. Even then, what would I say? I hope I never become famous, I’d probably just spend the whole time trying to help my fans out in some way and never do any work.  
      By the time Jake does return I’m hanging up my apron. “My shifts over,” I explain.

      “Oh no, what a pity!” he seems genuinely disheartened.

      “I’m sorry do I have to go, but I work here,” why am I saying this, “So I might see you again.”

      “Probably will then,” he grins and for a second he looks like Frank. My entire body stiffens and my face falls. I’m not really good at ignoring my problems and I’m definitely no good at fixing them. I’m kind of the “acknowledge and worry about it for several months” kinda guy.

 

It’s exactly two weeks since the kiss that ended a friendship. I guess at this stage I’m wondering more about what Frank is doing. Has he told his wife? If he did, did she end up trying to divorce him? I’m sure Frank could be his own lawyer and take every penny they have and then we can run away together to Sweden.

      Or maybe he’s just decided to forget about it and will never speak to me again.

      Maybe he’s off confessing his sins to the pope in Italy. Asking forgiveness for the sins of lust and homosexuality, though I don’t think you can pray yourself out of them. I wonder if he now believes he’ll burn in hell when he dies… He never really took the religion to that level of seriousness or else he wouldn’t have kissed me. I wish he was a religious pain in the butt, then we wouldn’t have ever spoken and we wouldn’t have kissed and I can go to hell alone.

      I drink an entire bottle of jack in the daylight, accompanied by ten cigarettes before I lie on my kitchen floor, staring up at the weird ceiling painting I did years ago. I did it to cover up a suicide note left by the last resident. Apparently they had used the oven, not a pretty way to go at all. It was a young girl too, like seventeen. I don’t know how I missed it when I was checking this place out the first time. It was written in eyeliner but it still wouldn’t scrub off so I painted two big black birds pecking at a brain. Granted, it’s no Late Dawn and Early Sunset over Monroeville.

      I have no idea how long I’m lying here, only that its pitch black when I rise. My phone is buzzing on the table and “My Anaconda Don’t” is singing out at me. Mikey changed my ringtone and I have no idea how to change it back.

     “Um, hello?”

      “Hi, Gerard. It’s Katelyn.” My heart rockets around my chest before plunging into my stomach and emerging as butterflies. “Frank’s wife, I’m sure you recall.”

     “I do.”

     “I would like to invite you over for dinner.”

     “You would?” _What the fuck. Maybe I’m dreaming because I wouldn’t put it past me to pass out on my kitchen floor._

     “Yes.” She sounds bored of this conversation already and she’sthe one who ignited it. “At two in the afternoon. At my penthouse suite on Sunday?”

      What kind of douche refers to their apartment as a “penthouse suite”? “Yea. Yes, I’m free then.”

      “Okay, superb. We’ll see you then. I have some matters to discuss with you.” And she hangs up. Well that gives me two days to freak out over what these matters could be. I think I shall start straight away. I text Mikey _come over_ and go into the bathroom to throw up the butterflies.

 

“Hi Gerard, come in.” Katelyn answers the door. She’s wearing her “Sunday best” which is a less business-like and less-cocktail like dress than any I’ve seen on her before. You can tell it’s expensive but that doesn’t make it pretty. It’s cream and knew length with random blue flowers on it.

      “Hi Mrs Iero.” She leads me to the dining table where there is a bottle of fancy ass wine and plates but no actual food yet.

      “Frank’s just in the kitchen, he’s cooking today,” she smiles sweetly at the door her husband is behind. “You may take a seat. Oh not there, that’s my seat.”

       I nod slowly and take the seat I assume is never used. Katelyn smiles.  “So, um you had something you wanted to, uh, discuss?”

      “I think its best we wait for Frank, wine?” Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why did she invite me here if she’s just going to reprimand me for kissing her husband and making him rekindle his gay days? Maybe she wants to make me feel very bad. Or maybe stab me. Maybe Frank isn’t hear at all and she’s just going to push me out of the window of her “penthouse suite”.

       She pours the wine even though I didn’t reply. It sloshes around the massive glass, red and deep. Like you could drown if you so much as look at it too long. She pours herself a noticeably smaller glass. _So her plan is to fill me with alcohol so I admit to wanting to screw her husband._

       We sit in silence for a very long time. Katelyn coolly measures me and seems to be not bothered at all by the silence. I, on the other hand, am sweating and probably red as the sunset I painter.

      Thankfully Frank does emerge. He’s holding a platter with a sliced roast beef on it. “Hey Gee.”

      “Hi Frankie.” Katelyn’s face twitches the slightest bit when I greet her husband with such an informal name.

      “Want some beef?” he places the platter on the table between me and his wife.

      “Yea, sure. Please.” I let Katelyn dish herself up first. I thought there’s some rule about guests choosing first, but I guess that rule is abandoned when your guest is a million classes bellow you and wants to run away with your husband.

      Frank makes a few more trips in and out bring peas, two variants on potatoes, roast vegetables and gravy. Of each bowl, Katelyn serves herself first and then nudges the dish slightly towards me to indicate that it’s my turn.

     When he returns, Frank sits down and dishes himself up. “How’ve you been Gerard, haven’t heard from you.” He talks so differently around Katelyn, like every word is chosen carefully.

     “Okay. I’ve been working in the bar more, see.” I cut a bit of meat as delicately as I can. “You?”

     “Yea I’ve been okay. Cutting through case after case.” There’s silence for a bit while we all eat. I can’t believe frank can cook. I’m beginning to feel like the only person in the world that can’t.

      “Um, Katelyn,” Frank says after a while. “You had something you wanted to say?”

      “Ah yes.” She puts down her cutlery and steeples her fingers. “Well I really love those pieces you did for us Gerard. And I was thinking that maybe you’d like to do us another? But not a canvas, a mural, if that’s in your repertoire?” I have no idea what repertoire means but I assume it is so I nod. “You see we have this spare room, and well, it won’t be spare for long.”

      _What’s that supposed to mean. Is she inviting me to live with them or something?_ “What?” Frank echoes my thoughts but slightly more aggressively than I thought.

       Katelyn places a hand on top of Frank’s. He flinches. “Frank,” she says, her expression as soft and sweet as cotton candy. “Frank, I’m pregnant.”

       I begin to cough out my wine and some starts seeping from my nose. _What a fucking way to drop the baby bomb._ I think I’m going to be sick.

       When I look over at Frank he’s pale and shaking. He’s facing his wife but his eyes are fixed on the distance. “Why are you saying this _now,_ ” he whispers. “What the fuck, why would you say this now? How long have you known?”

       “The doctor says I’m six weeks but I’ve known longer I guess,” she’s still speaking like a little angel.

      “Oh god,” Frank groans. “I thought we were going to not do this? Not yet? Oh god I thought we were going to wait!”

      “Aren’t you happy,” Katelyn smiles sweetly.

      “Over the fucking moon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi   
> So i meant to post this like 12 hours ago but the archive was down so I'm posting it now, (even though I should be in school) and yea.   
> I will get straight to writing the next chapter so let me know what you think and thank you :*


	10. Ten

I ended up leaving pretty quickly after Katelyn announcing her pregnancy. Frank started off quietly saying how fucking delighted he was. I’m quoting him there, “fucking delighted”. Then Katelyn lost her sweet expression and started getting really pissy over the fact that Frank never cares about anything and that’s when they began to fight. Not physically, but like lawyers. As soon as they broke into the legal jargon I accepted the job and told Katelyn to keep me informed before showing myself out. In the hall I could hear them growing louder shouting things like, “Your afore mentioned statement is blatantly untrue!” and “I object, you are putting forward ideas of the most obscene!”

      The only legal cases I’d ever seen were Judge Judy and ones in movies. They never sound like that. Maybe that’s why lawyers like them get paid so much is because they need to learn an entire extra vocabulary.

       The blow of the statement only hits me when I get home. I slide the bolts on my door and collapse onto the main room floor. I don’t cry. I’m too shaken to cry. To see Frank again was like a kick to the chest but this. What the fuck Katelyn Iero. She must have known _something_ and to really salt the wound of her husband’s guilt she wanted me there. You know in case he didn’t feel bad enough.

      He’s too young to be a dad. He has said before he wants to be a dad but not yet. Part of me hopes that he wants be a dad but not with Katelyn as the mom. I guess that ship has sailed.

     Catholicism won’t let her get an abortion. She wouldn’t want one anyway.

     I lie on the floor for several hours before rolling into the kitchen part to search for alcohol. I find a bottle of Bourbon in a pot in the bottom drawer and open it without getting off the floor. I drink it and smoke several cigarettes lying vertical. I wouldn’t suggest doing this, I nearly choked several times.

 

I wake up at about eleven the next day still lying on the cold linoleum of the kitchen floor with a pain in my back and a load of bourbon staining my shirt. I shake ashes out of my hair and sit up straight. Honestly this is a pathetic life.

      I shower for a half an hour but I can’t get rid of the smell of drink. I don’t realise until I get out that I’m crying. Oh.

      When I check my phone to my dismay I find a voice message from Katelyn. “ _Hi Gerard it’s katelyn Iero. Just wondering if you could come over today at about three o’clock to discuss the mural? Thanks._ ” She couldn’t even give me twenty four hours to wallow in self-pity, what a bitch.

      I search for twenty minutes until I find clean clothes and then throw a whole load of dirty ones into the washing machine with enough washing powder to make me smell like apricots permanently. Apricots smell nicer than I currently do.

     I decide to walk to the Iero’s to clear my head. I stop for coffee three times on the way and by the time I get to the entrance hall of their building I’m close to pissing myself.

     “Hi Gerard, come in,” Katelyn answers. I wonder if Frank’s here. Maybe it would be better if he wasn’t.

     “Hi, Mrs Iero. Before we start, may I use your toilet?” I’m all but hopping up and down.

      “Uh… Yes, it’s through there.”

      “Thank you!” I waddle over to the bathroom.

      When I return Katelyn is sitting pleasantly on her couch reading Women’s weekly. “Okay?”

      “Eh yea… You have cool monogrammed towels,” I say awkwardly.

      “Thank you. I’ll show you the wall. Now, I don’t know yet if it’s a boy or a girl and really this is planning greatly in advance. But I would like something unisex, and pretty. Specifically very adorable, something that wouldn’t scare the child as it goes to sleep.”  
      I follow her into the small cream room. Gold skirting here too. The poor child has to live with the same cream and gold, there is no escape. I hope it goes through an emo phase and paints the room black and hangs up posters of Taylor Momsen and Andy Biersack and scares the shit out of its mother. “So nothing that could possibly give them nightmares means basically nothing with a face…”

     “I guess.”

     “Well you really ruling out a lot.”

     “Possibly.”

     “And again, the gold is really limiting my pallet.”

     “Perhaps.”

     “So what do you have in mind?”

     “I was thinking maybe a scene again. Maybe a mountain top with a night time sky? Lots of little farms and sheep and things, nothing intimidating.” The kids growing up in New Jersey. I grew up in New Jersey, I’ve never personally seen a sheep.

     “Okay sure,” I pull out a sketchpad and pencil and begin to sketch a general drawing. “Do you think I could maybe change the colour or your skirting?”

      “Why?” she asks indignantly.

      “Um because gold goes with like nothing.”

      “You made it work with the other paintings.”

      “Well if you want mountains then you want greens. If you want more than one shade of green I don’t think you want gold skirting.”

      “What would you even change it to?” She folds her arms.

      “Baby blue? A very neutral colour, for boys and girls. Then I can make the greens very soft whereas if there’s gold they’ll have to be very vibrant. If they’re very vibrant the baby will have difficulty sleeping.” I put my hands on my hips.

      Katelyn sighs, “Very well. You may do that.”

 

I come back the next day with two tubs of white paint, a tub of baby blue paint, brushes, and a shit ton of old newspapers to cover the floor. Frank answers the door and pulls me in. “My wife will be back any second,” he says quickly.

      For a second I’m convinced he’s going to kiss me. Or knock me to the floor on top of all the tubs of paint and newspapers and fuck me. But he doesn’t. “I really like you and I’m not sorry we kissed. But we can’t. Katelyn must have known something was up or else she wouldn’t have hired you for this. She wants both of us to suffer for it or something. But now I’m going to be a fucking dad and there’s no backing out so I’m sorry.”

      I nod slowly, still holding all the things.

      “Um, need a hand?” Frank asks. I nod and shove a tub into his hand.

      “Will you help me lay out these?” I ask shaking the stack of newspapers slightly. I got them off Bob whose mother is a hoarder. These date back to the early 00’s.

       “Yea sure.”

       We line the floor with old papers. Katelyn comes home at one point and checks in on us. She doesn’t offer to help just goes into her office. When the floor is no longer visible Frank offers to help me paint the skirting.

      “Sure it’ll need at least three coats,” I say. We roll up our sleeves and chat pleasantly about our first concerts and get sort of covered in paint. When the first coat is on we go into his kitchen for coffee, giving it a chance to dry. “Um, by the way, why do you really shop in my Walmart?” I have been meaning to ask this for a while.

     “Ah.” He flushes slightly, “Well um. Okay. Don’t think of me as a fucking stalker…”

     “What?”

     “I wanted somewhere new to shop anyway okay. And then Mikey said he picked you up from around there so I thought, “hey, why not go shopping there where you might see that cute guy with a good music taste.” I promise it’s not as stalker-ish as it sounds.”

      I laugh to try and cool my cheeks which are currently on fire. “That does sound pretty stalker-ish but I’m glad you did.”

      “I’m glad I did too.”

      We stand there awkwardly sipping our coffee until I say we should check on the paint. It isn’t ready so we end up sitting together in the middle of the room. He shows me photos on his phone of when he met one of the Ramones before they died and I showed him a picture I took of Justin Bieber from behind when I spotted him in New York.

      Its eleven o’clock by the time three coats of white are dried and the blue applied. I walk a few meters down the street until cabs become visible again. Tomorrow I’m going to draw out the mountain shape and the lambs and shit. I wanted to be a comic book artist. If not that some kind of dark and deep artist who paints graveyards from his dreams. I never ever envisioned myself as the great portrait artist of lambs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy.  
> I was worried for a while i wouldn't actually get this done because i had so much on my to do list. But yea i wrote this instead of my math homework... Oh well. At least i got my history projects done which are due tomorrow. Mine are on Elvis Presley and Punk. Honestly it was the best assignment we were ever given and for once i'm looking forward to presenting it. My one on Punk will probably take my class by surprise because i have the image of the quiet, studious, smart girl and now i'm going to be lecturing them on the Sex Pistols and the Misfits :3   
> Anyway thanks a million for leaving all the lovely comments, sorry if the last chapter was a bit of a bombshell. Merci for reading and i'll update again tomorrow so let me know what you think! :))


	11. Eleven

I go there every day the next week at four hours a day. Each day I paint another part to the baby’s mural. Frank is never there. I keep telling myself he is a busy professional but it soon becomes evident Katelyn sends him on errands. He’s either “picking up some groceries” or “just at the drycleaners” or “returning a library book.” Each of these little errands obviously don’t last the full four hours unless he’s shopping for an army, delivering dry cleaning to Texas and returning an entire library of books to itself. The fact that she’s lying and sending him away makes me want to paint all the sheep with massive and realistic dicks. I won’t do that to Frank’s poor kid though.

      It’s Tuesday evening and I’ve been invited over to Ray’s so I only spend three hours painting fucking hills. Katelyn is reading a magazine on the couch when I walk out. “Oh, you’re finished early today.” I’m covered in paint and dying for a smoke so I really just want to get out of here. I need to change before dinner which I should get to in around forty minutes so I’m already pushing the time limits.

      “I did three hours, and I have somewhere to be,” I put the paintbrushes in my pocket.

      “You will be done by the time the baby comes, at this rate,” she hums.

      “Unless you are currently in labour then yea.”

      “I’m just saying four hours every now and then and I’m already two months.”

      “At two months you don’t even have a baby in you, you have extra cells that make you look fatter. Now I’ve got to go I’m running late. See you tomorrow.” I can feel her scowl on my back as I stride out the door.

       Okay that was dangerous. That was very fucking dangerous. She wouldn’t pay me less because socially that will look very bad. She’s paying me four thousand for this full wall painting. This will still help me afford things I need like coffee and band shirts. What she could do is much scarier. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think of who she has connections to. I don’t want to think of all the ways she can probably destroy me. Possibly kill me just for not kissing her feet as she acts like a bitch.

     When I tell Bob on the way to Ray’s he loses it. “Who the fuck does she think she is? How does earning more make her any better, I’ll fucking shove her out the window of her fucking castle. Fucking hell, giving out to you despite working every single day as well as at the bar as well!”

     “I know. She’s a bitch,” I say, staring out the window.

     “Not a strong enough word. She’s a, uh, yea okay a bitch. A fucking bitch.” When Bob gets pissy it effects his driving. He is hitting the accelerator like it will take him to Mars and hits on the breaks enough for the seatbelt to cut into my chest. “I just hate people like that. Can’t people just fucking realise that they are no better than anyone else? That when they act like a fucking asshole they are in fact worse than everyone else. Fuck it.” He swerves into the parking place behind Ray’s.

       Ray has a freshly cooked chicken casserole just on the table by the time we appear in his kitchen. Bob and I both have keys for some reason.

      “Hi! Oh no, what’s wrong?” Ray reads Bob’s expression instantly.

      “Gerard’s working for an asshole,” he roughly pulls out his seat and flops into it.

       “No need to insult yourself like that,” Ray smiles but Bob only looks up at him from beneath furrowed brows. “Okay sorry. What happened?”

      “Gerard, retell the story.”

      “Um, okay,” I sit down and give a quick version of the story while Ray serves up. I watch as his frown deepens as I directly quote Katelyn.

       “Well that’s horrible,” Ray says, sitting down.

       For some reason no matter what we talk about the whole meal, my mind will not move past the things Frank said the day of the skirting painting. And between each thought I hear him saying “I loved her”.

      “Do I overthink things?” I say interrupting something Ray was saying on the rise of Applewood frames.

      “You’re obviously overthinking something right now,” Ray says with a meek smile, “or else you wouldn’t have asked. What are you over thinking about?”

       “I’m overthinking everything Frank has said to me.”

       “Oh?”

       “He’s said “I loved her” talking about his wife. Does that mean he no longer does or was he just explaining why he’d married her so young. Past tense and shit?”

       “Um,” Ray puts down his fork. “I don’t know. What has overthinking told you?”

       “That I really like Frank.”  
       “Good progress,” Bob grunts, “were you drunk.”

       “Always.”  
       “Then maybe he doesn’t love her anymore, drunk people have no problem being that honest. When was this?”

       “Just before we kissed,” I blush and look down.

       “Definitely used to then.”

       “Hmm.”

       “Is that all you’ve been thinking about?”

       “He also said that he really likes me but can’t because he’s going to be a dad.”

       “Oh,” Ray says.

       “Yea.”

       “Well don’t have to overthink that at all. It’s kind of a “stay together for the kids” situation.”

       “Maybe.”

 

Another week of painting that stupid fucking mural everyday four hours. Finally on Tuesday it’s Frank not fucking Katelyn. All she’d do is sit in her living room reading Women’s Weekly or some fucking tabloid. She’s never once offered me like a drink and only scowls when I leave the room to use the toilet. Does she honestly believe I’ll sit and paint without doing normal human stuff like pissing?

       “Hi!” Frank beams. “I’m sorry it’s been so long! Katelyn either had me sent out or I was working. I had no idea that this was the time you came at. Or that you came every day. Hi.”  
      “Hi.”

      “Um, can I help you with anything?”

      “You could definitely keep me company. Four hours is a long time.”

      We walk into the room together. Frank sits on the floor and happily chatters away as I paint stars onto the night sky. Realistic stars, this kid won’t grow up thinking stars are pointy. I’m so tempted to paint one as the satanic star but I think it might set the room on fire thanks to the gold trimmed crucifixes everywhere.

      There’s only about two days’ work left. Tomorrow and the day after. “Um, Frank?”

      “Yea?”

      “I’m going to be finished in two days.”

      “Well that’s great!”

      “I guess.”

      “What is not great about it?”

      “Will we still hang out after? I mean we’re friends but y’know…”

      “Well I’d like too. Katelyn doesn’t have a fucking say in who I hang out with, if that’s what you’re worried about. She doesn’t like you but that means nothing.”  
      “Oh.”

      “Yea. So want to go to the bar when you’re finished? Celebratory. We can invite your Mikey and mine.”

 

The next day I’m disappointed to find Frank is “collecting dry cleaning”. Katelyn could be a little more creative with her excuses. I just go straight into the room and paint little stars. I’m almost finished and then I can deny the fact I’ve ever been in the same room as Katelyn Iero.

     After about two hours I walk from the baby’s room into the kitchen to get some coffee. While I’m by the sink I can hear something through the wall. Like sobbing. I realise immediately that that wall is all that separates the kitchen and Katelyn’s study and inside it she’s _crying._

      I put down the water container and lean in to the wall. I can just about make out what she’s saying. She even cries annoyingly. “… I know Liza. LI know okay I’m not a simpleton… You’re not helping! ... No that’s all he said. He just said that it’s impossible… Yes even artificial insemination…” Oh. “No it’s nothing do with Frank, it’s my- our, fucking genes.” _Oh._ “I have to tell him… Obviously not till he’s gone! … He’s nearly finished… He’s a sinner and a faggot and I can’t…” Ouch. “No… Well maybe… Okay look I’ve got to go email the doctor back… Tomorrow then, bye.” I step back from the wall and run as silently back into the room, vision impaired by tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salutations.  
> So i'm finally kinda back on track with the story. Like it's still longer than i thought but my main plot lines are finally in XD There is more to come. Two more chapters i think but possibly three. Oh and then i have this Jalex one to write if any are interested. I have like five OTPs but I only seem to write Frerard.  
> Today I managed to make a public fool of myself but atm i'm beyond caring. I told a boy in my year that his powerpoint was superb and then called a random guy in the queue in a shop a fucknipple. As well as shouting "ew hetero" at my ex and his girlfriend despite being straight myself. Oh well.  
> Thanks for reading and I will update tomorrow (or later today whatever) and make sure you let me know what you think :)))


	12. Twelve

Frank is there on the last day but so is Katelyn. “Hi Gee! I hear you’ll be done today!”

      “Yup, I could be finished now it’s only finishing touches,” I smile and then see Katelyn behind him holding her stomach like there’s actually a kid there. I have such a temptation to shout something at her, but I couldn’t do that to Frank.

      “Wait, before you start I want to show you this shirt I got,” he grins and jogs into his bedroom. Katelyn sits down on the couch and picks up a book. She lifts it just enough when she’s opening it for me to see that it’s fifty shades of grey. Ew, it is the bestselling book in America solely because it’s porn. It’s fucking badly written and disgusting and people just feel classier reading porn than watching it again, but still. It’s terrible. I wonder if she realises how much everything she does pisses me off.

      Frank re-appears holding two shirts. One that says, “I’m a rad dad” and another reading “Punk rock fatherhood”. _Oh god Frank._

“Katelyn hates them,” he grins and his wife sends him a cheeky smile before returning to her gross porn book. “But I think they’ll suit me very well. And when the baby’s born I’m never taking them off. I want to be that dad.”

       I laugh unconvincingly. “What is it?” he frowns.

       “Nothing they’re just so lame,” I smile genuinely, because they are.

       “Yea true. Now hop to, my wife isn’t paying you to stand around looking pretty.” I flash of anger crosses Katelyn’s face behind him but she quickly gets it back under control.

       “Awh really?” I grin, “I knew my beauty would never earn me squat!”

       It only takes two hours to completely finish the mural. It looks really boring. I guess that’s good in the way someone as boring as Katelyn will love it. Pity there’ll never be a fucking baby. I begin to pull up newspapers and scrunch them up.

       “Um,” I walk out of the room. Katelyn looks up from the book and Frank lifts his head from his laptop. “Um, it’s done.”

       “Finished,” Katelyn says.

       “Fuck off,” I mumble. Frank jumps straight up and Katelyn smiles. They follow me back into the room.

       “Oh,” Katelyn clasps her hands together like she’s going to pray with joy. “Oh well done, Gerard. You are capable of very pretty art.”

       “Thanks Mrs Iero,” I mumble.

       “The baby’s going to love it!” Frank grins, “Fucking great, Gee.”

 

I cash the check on my way home. I wonder when she’ll tell him. I wonder if she’ll tell him. Maybe she’ll kill him so that he never knows. Well probably not. It’s rather extreme and I’m pretty sure “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is one of the rules you never break, like “No Skateboarding outside the Hospital” and “Do Not Dropkick A Child”.

      I have three texts from Mikey when I get home, _Are you finished yet?_ , _Did she tell him?_ , _I’m coming over now._

      Sure enough three minutes after I walk in my own door, Mikey walks in. “Did she tell him?”

      “Hi brother, how’re you?” I scoff before flopping face first onto the couch. “I hate her, man. I haven’t hated anyone this much since Natalie Jonas.” Natalie Jonas being the pretty, popular girl who decided that I was the worst thing since the holocaust and literally made middle school and high school hell. I saw her once since High School and she was working retail, needless to say I never returned to that shop, only fantasised about setting it ablaze.

      “Shit.” Mikey sits down beside my legs and pats the back of my knee. “Have you considered telling Frank yourself?”

      “No, it’s better for everyone if she says it.”

      “Will she say it?”

      “Well she doesn’t really have a choice does she? She could just put on a lot of weight but that would never work after five months. Nine months later Frank’s going to notice that she hasn’t pulled a human out of her yet.”

      “You should be a poet.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Well she could just try like get the baby put in her. You know that weird way that doctors can do now, make a surrogate parent. Like Phoebe in friends had her brother’s triplets.”

       “Oh yea. But the baby is supposed to be like two and a half maybe three months by now. She’s going to have to say something, Mikey. And honestly, the longer she leaves it the more fucking angry Frank’s going to be.”

 

That Friday I go shopping and no Frank. Obviously I can’t see him every time only I really want to see him now. I just really want to know. Bob’s given me the night off even though I didn’t ask for it. I think he sensed I needed it. You know some days you feel low and other days you feel so low you’re shocked at your ability to stand up. I’ve been gliding through them recently.

      Mikey is gone over to vodka and coke girl’s house. He said he’d cancel it to cheer me but it was dinner with her parents. I don’t really mind, I had been planning to get very drunk and go to sleep on my kitchen floor. Just as I open a new bottle of vodka Frank rings, sounding as sullen as I feel. “Hi, Gee. Can you come over?”

      “Um, yep, of course. Are you alright?” he hangs up. She’s told him. She must have told him.

      I run outside and wave down a taxi. I wonder if Frank’s kicked her out. I wonder if he’d even do that. He sounded more upset than angry, really. Maybe he was angry and then she left him and that’s why he’s sad. Or maybe he’s sad that she’d lie to him like that. Maybe she got people to back her up, like her sister, saying that she only lied to save their wedding.

      The cab takes a turn up the avenue halfway between our homes. Maybe Katelyn confronted him about us. It would not surprise me if she managed to manipulate him into feeling guilty. Lawyers can do that shit really well. Maybe she made some excuse to go out of town that would upset Frank. Like that her granduncle died and her sister bought to plane tickets to Monroeville, leaving Frank alone wondering why his in-laws don’t like him. She could stay there until the baby is supposedly born then, come home with an adopted baby. Actually that would be an incredibly stupid plan if that’s what she’s going to do.

      Frank’s probably just really sad that she lied to him about something that big.

      I pay the fair and jog up the steps into the building. I share the elevator with a middle-aged woman who gets off three floors before I do. The last three floors seem to take particularly long.

       I knock on the door and adjust my shirt while I wait. Curiosity is burning a hole through my stomach. Or maybe it’s that dodgy taco I had for lunch.

       “Hi Gee, come on in,” Frank answers the door. Katelyn is sitting on the couch looking shaken. Her sister has an arm around her and is staring at me, measuring my steps. Mikey is sitting on the far side of the couch.

       “What’s going on?” I ask. This is not the scene I anticipated at all, no matter the scenario.

       “Katelyn miscarried, Gerard,” Frank says softly.

       _What._ “What?!” everyone looks completely shocked by the harshness in my voice. Well I was hardly going to sugar-coat my disgust. Such an easy way out how didn’t I think of it before?

       “Gerard?” Frank mumbles.

       I take a step toward the couch, glaring at Katelyn. “So this is what you told him? This is your story?”

       Her cheeks flush in anger but quickly cool with that weird talents lawyers have where they can show literally nothing on their faces. “Gerard, what?” She sounds sweeter than normal. No one seems to pick up on it.

       “You know what I’m saying, Mrs Iero. You know very well, as does your sister,” as I speak I realise how unbelievably badly this could and probably will end for me. Fuck.

      “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she says innocently.

      “I was going to say something but I wanted you to say it to him yourself. You can’t have kids. You were never carrying a child.”

      Liza’s eyes narrow immediately. Mikey continues to look shocked from the couch and Frank stands between his wife and myself looking bewildered and hurt. “Gee what are you saying?”

     “How dare you,” Katelyn gasps. “How could you say such things in this time of grief?”

     “How can you grieve over something you never had,” I spit, “I know you were sad when you first found out and I know it was mainly because you know that you’d be caught.”

     “Get out!” Katelyn screams, leaving all her lawyer calm behind. “Get out, get out, get out!”

     “I’m going,” I glance at the hurt on Frank’s face, “I’m sorry… just… just check her doctor’s records or something… I’m not lying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi  
> So I spent my Saturday night drinking tea, writing gay fan fic, and listening to Beethoven while having eyeliner on one eye. My sister even asked why i don't go to party's like a normal teenager. Idk, normal teenagers have friends who throw parties i guess XD so yea, by the way well done to everyone who actually called what was going to happen, i didn't think it was that predictable xD um so yea final chapter coming tomorrow, thank you so much for reading and actually making it this far, let me know what you think and i hope the ending won't disappoint!


	13. Thirteen

I can’t stop shaking when I get home. I strode confidently from the building, down the street and into the cab but as soon as I sat down the tremors began. Miraculously, I didn’t cry until I got home. I think I may have just messed everything up. Ending relationships is a good talent of mine because I may have just ended three at once. If only I could get paid for fucking up, I’d be rich.

      When I got home I fell to the kitchen floor and have been lying here shaking for three hours now. What if Katelyn covered up every trace of her inability to get pregnant? What if she swore her doctor to secrecy? What if Frank never checks? He could just believe that his wife is grief-stricken and that’s why she threw a fit there. Maybe he believes that she lost the baby because she put on a very convincing show. And maybe now this will lead him to hating me forever. Maybe Mikey Chapman will hate me forever too and I’ll have to go back to having two friends and a brother.

       I roll over and look up at the birds pecking the brain. “I wish birds would peck out my brain so I don’t have to feel,” I croak aloud. It takes all my strength to rise off the ground and search for that bottle I’d opened before rushing off to Frank. I drink it all relatively quickly and then smoke to try and calm my stomach. This much vodka this quick on an empty stomach is a very bad idea.

      I lie on my kitchen floor again and watch as my eyes lose focus and regain it again with the waves of intoxication.

 

Mikey calls over at midday the next day. “How’re you doing Gerard,” he says, waking me. I’m lying on my kitchen floor he can probably tell I’m not in the best of moods, though I do seem to sleep on the kitchen floor a lot.

      “Really great, I ruined everything.”

      “Wait, you went over?”

      “She told him that she had a miscarriage.”

      “Bitch,” Mikey says on a sharp intake of breath.

      “Yea. So I called her out, in front of Frank and her sister. And the other Mikey. All without evidence. I probably looked like an insanely jealous asshole who wanted to ruin a marriage so I could butt fuck Frank.”

      “Your way with words is beautiful.”

      “Not helping.” I pull myself off the floor. I think I’m going to fucking vomit all over my apartment. I just hobble over to the couch.

       “Well what do you want me to say?” He sits down beside me, “fuck bro, you smell like death.”

      “Thanks.”

      “So what are you going to do about it?”

      “Nothing, what do I ever do. I’m just going to rot away here while Frank and his wife work through her “miscarriage” and do their lawyer thing to negotiate a better deal. Maybe they’ll adopt just so Frank could still wear his lame-ass, dorky dad t-shirts and they can live a happy life away from their loser artist.”

      “Fucking hell, Gerard.”

 

I spend the day nursing my hangover with bottles of cider. Mikey stays for about an hour and then sends me into the shower while he goes off to work.

      I lie on the couch and think. That’s all I do all day. I just think. I think about ways I could possibly fix this, none. I think about all the possible scenarios of how Katelyn could save her own skin, I come up with twenty six. Granted, the one where she covers her trousers in blood so it looks like the baby exploded out of her, isn’t very likely. Neither is the one where she makes a three month old foetus corpse out of play-dough. They’re far too horror movie-esque for Katelyn Iero.

      After several hours I get up and start a new painting. It was just going to be two figures being drawn apart by a giant witch but of course it ended up being myself and Frank being drawn apart by Katelyn. She’s wearing a cream dress trimmed with gold. At first Frank and I are naked and then I realise how fucking creepy that is and I paint underwear and socks on. Because of the ever increasing amount of beer, the last parts look kind of weird. Like the socks look really odd and for some reason Frank’s are thigh high. Also looking weird are Katelyn’s teeth and the dark purple background of the painting which I’ve dotted with sheep. I’ve gotten very good at little sheep. By five am the piece is complete. I’ve never worked so fast on a canvas like this that I’m actually trying to make look good. I think anger and heartbreak fuelled it.

        I put down my brush and crawl onto my couch where I quickly pass out.

 

A knock. It wakes me up immediately from a nightmare about a man eating fungus I accidentally unleashed on Manhattan while trying my hand a botany. My head pounds the second I stand up. “Fuck,” I groan. There’s another knock that pierced through my skull. “One second!” I groan, stumbling to the door. Mikey probably sent Ray or Bob to come cheer me up.  

      “Um, hi, Gerard.”

      “Mikey?”

      “Can I come in?”

      “Of course,” I stand back and let the ginger Mikey into my room. He stops two paces in, staring. I left the painting up from last night. Oh fuck. _Oh Fuck._  

      “Oh,” he looks kind of amused.

      “Um, that…” You can even see how the navy underpants I gave us was painted on top of realistic dicks. “I’m not as perverted as this makes me look.”

     “Right. You forgot Frank’s stomach tattoos,” he walks past into the main floor space where thirteen bottles lie on the floor from when I tried domino-ing them. I’m really giving off a terrible impression.

     “I had a rough night, okay? Want to sit down?”

     “Understandable. Yea, sure.”

     “So… why…?”

     “Why am I here? I need to, uh talk to you about the whole Katelyn thing. Frank kinda broke down when you left.”

     “Shit, I’m so sorry.”  
     “I don’t think it’s all down to you. But I obviously went straight to comforting Frank but Katelyn and Liza swirled off. After a while I went to check in on Katelyn and she was furiously deleting shit from her emails and Liza was searching in a stack of papers for something. So I believe you. When I asked her what she was doing she said she was cancelling a payment to you but I’ve a fucking business degree so who does she think she’s lying to. And yea last night Frank did look up her records and nothing there.”

      “I’m telling the truth. I overheard her on the phone to Liza. I was going to let her tell him because I didn’t want to ruin their marriage…”

      “Their marriage was going to be ruined sooner or later.”

      “I just wished it wasn’t me who did the ruining.”

      “Yea that must suck.” There’s a pause.

      “What does Frank think now?”

      “Eh, last I heard they were fighting. Full on screaming at each other. So I don’t know. I don’t think Frank is too keen on “talking things out” now, but Katelyn is incredibly manipulative and it won’t be the first time she’s made him feel guilty for something she did.”

 

Mikey left after a half hour. I sit on my couch nervously. I can’t eat or walk or lie down or anything. I just want to know what Frank thinks. I wish I could go over and prove it, but how can I? I wish I’d recorded it or something at the time. I guess I was just fucking stupid enough to think that that bitch would come clean. I can’t believe I left it as a “my word against hers”.

     Bob pops up after a while with a burger and chips from McDonalds. He apologises that he can’t stay but he left the bar unattended. He runs back down the stairs before I even reply.

     I go to sleep at the humane hour of midnight in my bed with only two beers drank. I feel very proud of this fact, I haven’t really slept as anything other than a drunken mess on the floor recently. Being drunk alone isn’t even that fun.

 

I wake up at eleven forty seven and decide to have breakfast. I put two slices of bread in the toaster and start scrambling my eggs. After a few seconds my phone rings in my room and I have to run there really fast so my eggs don’t stick to the pot. I’m sick of being the guy who can’t even scramble eggs.

      “Hey, gee.”

      “Frank?” My heart starts pounding and the handle of the wooden spoon shakes as I do. “What’s- How’re you?”

      “Not the best I’ve ever been. I’m a good lawyer but not as good as Katelyn so she just cheated me out of the apartment. I’m at Mikey’s and we’re wondering if you’d like to come over and help me celebrate my singleness?”

     “I’ll get in a cab now.”

     I fold the eggs into the toast and eat it as I jog down the stairs and out into the sunlight. I’ve just realised I haven’t been outside in two and a half days. That’s probably unhealthy.

     Awkwardly, I give the cab driver instructions to Mikey’s and then finish my toasted egg sandwich, even though the butterflies it collides with in my stomach threatens to send it back.

     I believe it’s very lame to skip unless you are a five year old girl. Even so, I skip up to Mikey’s gate.

     “Hi gee!” Frank says when he opens the door and I absentmindedly launch at him.

     “You could have told me earlier!” I complain before letting him go. “I honestly thought you’d believe her and hate me forever!”

     “Well that’s extreme,” he says, rubbing his arm. “I couldn’t tell you, there was no time. We had a massive fight and then spent all day completing our divorce.”  
      “Wait, you’re divorced? Already?”

      “Yea.”

      “What? I thought they take ages to file?”

      “Not really. We’re lawyers, we make the process longer so we get paid more. Want some coffee?”

      I shake my head incredulously. “You’re weird Frank Iero,” I laugh as we walk into Mikey’s large kitchen where he’s eating much nicer looking scrambled eggs.

      “Thanks.”

 

tHe EnD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo!   
> You know what sucks, emotions.   
> Anyway, here's the FiNaL cHaPtEr, hope it wasn't worse than you anticipated. I have had requests for a sequel but i honestly just don't know what i'd do. So i think it's best to leave this here in case i ruin it. Thank you for all the lovely comments, it's rad to see people reacting to every chapter XD. Um i'll be taking a break from Frerard fics because i do have 5 OTPs and i'd like to write them and if I don't write Jalex (All Time Low) soon i think my friend will ignore me XD. Sorry to my darling Rosie for not ending with a massive make out scene like you asked..  
> Thanks so much for reading guys! If you liked this you may or may not like my other fics (there's six up here) and yea give them an ol' read if you really want. I have like seven more ideas so i'm off to get to right away and pretty please let me know what you think of this story :* xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> So this chapter is quite short, I'm treating it as a pilot. I'll post two or three chapters and if there's interest I'll keep going so let me know what you think :)


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